


Back To You

by cgf_kat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Langst, Romance, allurance, plance, plangst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-08-01 15:08:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16286870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: Post A/L breakup after season 7, Pidge and Lance are JUST starting to, maybe, figure something out. But then a mission gone wrong leaves Pidge unable to feel emotions, unable to act on the feelings they were barely sure they had, and the condition may or may not be permanent.





	1. Chapter 1

_ Now _

 

“What do they mean it looks like the toxin is trying to do something to her  _ brain _ ? What does that even mean!” Lance huffs. 

 

He paces back and again across the corridor outside the Atlas’s infirmary. He’d long since been kicked out by the doctors, but at least Shiro seems to be taking it upon himself to keep him company out here.

 

“I don’t know, Lance,” he says gently.

 

“What kind of weird ancient civilization leaves things that could screw up people’s brains just  _ sitting around _ anyway? 

 

“They’re trying to flush it from her system, and Allura is in there doing anything she can, too.”

 

“Why can’t I be in there!” Lance questions, waving at the door wildly. 

 

“Because you were doing this,” Shiro deadpans. “Also, you’re not family, or medical personnel, or Allura - who counts as medical personnel in extreme situations - which means you really shouldn’t have followed them in there in first place.”

 

“We didn’t have rules like this on the castle!” Lance reminds him. “This is a spaceship, not a hospital; why does it matter?”

 

Shiro lets out a breath, slowly, and somewhere in the back of his mind Lance recognizes that Shiro is trying to be patient with him. Trying to understand. He knows Shiro is probably as worried as he is. 

 

“It matters because this is  _ my _ ship, and I would appreciate it if you would respect protocol,” Shiro says, not unkindly.

 

“I...I…” Lance’s shoulders slump. “Yeah. Sorry.”

 

A hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “It’s all right.”

 

Keith and Hunk come back to join the waiting once they’ve changed out of their armor. Lance still hasn’t; he refuses to go anywhere at all until he knows Pidge is all right. 

 

***

 

_ Three Months Ago _

 

Lance parks himself on the floor beside the bed in Pidge’s room, hooking up controllers as Pidge hooks the game console itself to the old television they managed to track down and drag up here. “This is SO much easier than trying to play this thing on the castle.”

 

“Or in our lions,” Pidge snorts. “Green had had just about enough of the weird conglomeration of stuff I had hooked up to use her screens by the time we got back to Earth.”

 

Since then none of them have had time to play, what with the whole retaking their planet thing. Now people are slowly leaving the Garrison, going back to their homes to clean up their neighborhoods and find one what’s still there. 

 

“Thank goodness your house is still here, or we’d have to do this at the Garrison.”

 

Pidge smiles a little, glancing around at the still-messy room. It and the rest of the house look to have been cleaned of the dust that came from sitting mostly untouched for three years, but there are small piles of things strewn across the floor from what seems to be an aborted attempt at organization. Or maybe just Pidge being Pidge. 

 

“Was anything missing?” Lance asks.

 

She winces. “Well, yeah. I had a telescope. But I don’t guess that’s such a big deal now; I mean I’ve BEEN to space. I’m only upset because Dad gave it to Matt and Matt gave it to me. And all of Mom’s jewelry and stuff she didn’t take with her is gone, and some other stuff.”

 

Lance hands her a controller as she turns settles beside him on the floor. “Man, I’m sorry.”

 

Pidge shrugs. “It’s okay. We’re a lot luckier than some people, so I can’t really complain. What about your house? Didn’t you bring your brother and his family home last week?”   
  


“Yeah it’s still there; it needs a lot of work and a lot of our stuff was gone too, and Luis had to kick out some squatters, but it’s there.” He snorts. “Okay, I say ‘kick out’ but it was more like telling them they needed to find another place but they could stay until then as long as they helped him fix things up. Knowing Luis, Dad’ll have to go back in like a month and at least make them move to the garage. MAYBE all the way to the barn, if he’s just really in a mood.”

 

Pidge laughs. “Now I know where you get it.”

 

“What?”

 

“How much you care about people.”

 

There’s something about the way she’s looking at him when she says that makes him blush, and he stammers through brushing it off. “What? I mean—it’s just—”

 

“Calm down, man.”

 

But even in the dim room, he’s pretty sure she was blushing, too. 

 

***

 

Lance can’t stay long that first afternoon, after setting up the game console. He jumps up with a yelp an hour and a half after they’ve started playing.

 

“Quiznak!”   
  


“What?” Pidge frowns.

 

“I’m supposed to take Allura out tonight. Not that there’s a lot of places to go, but...anyway.” He glances at his phone. “I’ve got to meet her in like half an hour.”

 

“Oh…” For a moment the disappointment on Pidge’s face is palpable, but she covers it with an understanding smile so quickly it gives Lance something akin to whiplash. “Fine, but you’d better come back soon.”

 

“I’ll come back tomorrow if you’ll let me.”

 

But really there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to leave now at all. Even to see Allura. 

 

***

 

When Allura sees Earth’s rain for the first time that night, Lance is happy to be the one there with her. He’s so happy to be standing out in the rain again himself, letting the water drench him, watching the princess spin slowly in wonder. 

 

But part of him wishes Pidge were there. He wants to see her face tilted up in the rain, her smile, her hair damp and hanging over her shoulders. He can almost see it in his mind…

 

Lance shakes himself from the vision, blinking at himself in confusion because why would he be thinking those things? It doesn’t make any sense. 

 

He goes to Allura and takes her around the waist, pulling her gently to him. “You know, we kind of have a tradition here…”

 

“Oh?” she laughs. But she doesn’t seem surprised when he kisses her, there in the rain.

 

It should be everything Lance ever wanted - kissing Allura, one of his closest friends who also happens to be a space princess, in the rain here on Earth and…

 

So why does something feel...off?

 

Maybe it feels strange because Earth isn’t how he remembered it. Maybe that’s all. 

 

***

 

_ One Month Ago _

 

Aside from spending time together personally, Allura is teaching him to use his bayard’s sword form. She’s by no means an expert in that particular weapon, but she’s still good, and it is an Altean broadsword after all. It’s easier to learn the basics from her than from someone else.

 

Besides, maybe it’ll make sense to ask Keith for finer points later, but Lance would rather not do that until he’s better than he is now. 

 

And training is another way to spend time with Allura. Or those were his thoughts in the beginning, anyway. He still enjoys it, but training, when it’s just the two of them, has been strangely tense lately. Everything has been strange. For days. And maybe it’s just in his head, but even if it is just him, he thinks he knows why.

 

Lance is winded by the time they stop for the day, and Allura, as usual, is barely breaking a sweat as he drops to the floor against the wall of one of the gyms at the Garrison. She sits beside him, much more graceful. 

 

He isn’t sure why he makes a move to kiss her right now, of all the times and places—maybe to help him figure out what’s going on in his head—but this time he’s paying attention. Allura returns the kiss almost automatically, but it’s not like it was those first few weeks, when they didn’t really know what they were doing, but they thought they were happy. 

 

They were happy, weren’t they? For a little while? 

 

But Allura is hesitant, and a little stiff, and Lance stops and lets his head fall to her shoulder. 

 

“Allura...I’m so sorry.”

 

“What do you mean?” She’s trying to sound like nothing is wrong, but the last words land too high to fool anyone.

 

Lance sighs and picks his head up. “I mean is it just me, or is this…” and he motions between them, “getting more and more...weird?”

 

Allura stares at him wide-eyed for a moment, but then her shoulders slump and she looks away. “Oh, thank the ancients it isn’t only me.”

 

“What?” He manages to laugh at that, even if it’s only in surprise. 

 

She shifts against the wall to face him. “Lance...you have grown into a wonderful young man. Not only are you a skilled fighter and paladin, but you are...sincere, and kind, and...if anything, I _ wish _ that I felt that way about you. But the more we have tried to move our relationship in a romantic direction, the stranger I’ve felt.”

 

“Yeah. That kind of sums it up.” He lets out a breath in amused frustration. “I wanted this chance for so long and now look at us.”

 

“I am sorry, too. I did not mean to cause so much confusion. After all, I suppose it was me who started this, really. I thought my feelings had begun to change; this is my fault,” Allura says quietly. 

 

“It’s not your fault,” Lance mumbles into his knees. 

 

“I still enjoy spending time with you immensely.”

 

He perks up at that. “Me too!”

 

“I’ve enjoyed the chance to really get to know you, and I don’t mean that I want to stop that. In fact I would be rather sad if we did.”

 

“Exactly! We should just hang out more. Like this. You know? Not that it has to be training. Just...anything without saying we’re...dating or whatever.” There’s a pang in his chest as he says it, and maybe Allura notices that, too. She gets to her feet and offers him a hand, and when she pulls him up she pulls him straight into a tight embrace. 

 

“Thank you, Lance...for everything.”

 

He wants to answer— he wants to say ‘you too,’ if nothing else, because he has so much to thank her for; she ‘still’ inspires him—but his throat is suddenly too clogged to let him speak. 

 

***

 

“I thought you had a date tonight.”

 

Pidge seems surprised when Lance shows up on her doorstep that evening, but really he’s surprised that’s where he ends up, too. He used to go to Hunk when he was feeling down about anything girl related, and this is so much more...real than that. But right now there’s nowhere he would rather be than here. 

 

He doesn’t even necessarily want to talk about it; he just wants to hole up in Pidge’s room with snacks and videos games and her laugh. That smile outlined in the light from the screen…

 

Oh. 

 

OH.

 

Oh quiznak...

 

“Lance?”

 

Pidge is still standing in her front doorway, waiting for an answer.

 

Lance clears his throat quickly. “Something uh...something came up. I’m a free man tonight! Wanna play?”

 

“Sure…”

 

“I-I mean we don’t have to if you don’t want t—” 

 

She chuckles and steps back to motion him inside. “Get in here, ya dork.”

 

And he doesn’t mean to drag his own stuff into their hanging out. He really doesn’t. He tells himself he won’t say anything to Pidge, but his thoughts keep drifting. His throat keeps alternately clogging and unclogging even as they play, sometimes so tight it’s painful and all he can do not to sob aloud for what would seem like absolutely no reason to her. He doesn’t want to do that.

 

But she notices the occasional sniffing and the runaway tear or two anyway. 

 

“Lance, are you okay?”

 

“What? Yeah. It’s nothing.”

 

“You’re a terrible liar.”

 

“The glare from the screen is making my eyes water,” he mumbles.

 

“And your nose run?”

 

“Pidge, come on!”

 

She doesn’t push it; she doesn’t say anything else at all, but she keeps glancing at him. He knows she’s concerned, and he doesn’t like keeping her in the dark like that. 

 

“Allura and I broke up.”

 

Pidge pauses the game and blinks at him. “Oh. I...I’m so sorry, Lance; was it bad? I—”

 

“No no! We didn’t have a fight or anything; nothing like that. We just kind of agreed it wasn’t working, you know? Not like that. Like…” He shakes his head. “I guess sometimes you can think you want something so much it takes a long time to realize maybe it’s not the best thing. Or something like that.”

 

He knows they did the right thing. He knows it. And he doesn’t regret that they tried. But it still feels like a weight in his chest; it still feels like a loss. It’s going to take time for that to go away, isn’t it?

 

He doesn’t say any of that out loud, and Pidge doesn’t say anything either. But she slides closer until their shoulders are pressed together before she un-pauses the game, and they stay that way for the rest of the night as they play. She also doesn’t seem to mind that he’s sniffing and swiping at his face half the time. She just lets him be. 

 

He wakes up on Pidge’s floor, a pillow shoved under his head and a blanket over him. Light is seeping in through the windows, and when he realizes what that means he bolts upright in panic. Oh quiznak, what are her parents going to think…?

 

Pidge is nowhere to be seen; he thinks maybe his best bet is just to get out as quickly as he can. He makes it down the stairs without incident, but when he rounds a corner to make a break for the back door he runs straights into Sam Holt.

 

Lance shrieks and jumps back, babbling immediately. “Ah! Hi! I-I can explain! This is not what it— I fell asleep! On the floor! I uh…”

 

Sam’s stony expression cracks at the sound of laughing from the kitchen. Pidge. Of course it’s Pidge. But now Sam is laughing, too, and what the…?

 

“I’m sorry, Lance, we knew you stayed. Katie told us before she went to bed and slept in Matt’s room for the night.”

 

“Oh…”

 

Pidge has appeared in the hallway behind her father, still laughing. “Your face…!”

 

Sam claps his shoulder and propels him toward her and the kitchen. “Come on, son; how about some breakfast?”


	2. Chapter 2

_ Now _

 

It seems like hours before anyone comes out of the infirmary, and when Allura does she looks...uncertain.

 

Lance is sure his heart must skip a beat or two as he pushes off from the corridor wall. “Allura? Is Pidge okay?”

 

“Physically, she is fine,” Allura says quickly. 

 

“Oh…” His shoulders slump in relief, and around him Shiro, Keith, and Hunk relax a little too. 

 

“Then...what is it?” Shiro is asking.

 

Allura swallows and shifts on her feet. “We have managed to remove any trace of the toxin from her body, and there is no physical damage; however, as we were afraid of it does seem that its’ target was her brain. We are getting some strange readings, but they are scattered; there will be no way to know for certain what has been affected and how until she wakes.”

 

“What do you mean ‘affected?’” Lance asks. 

 

“We don’t know. I’m sorry, but even after she wakes, the doctors will need to run cognitive tests, and I may be able to help make an assessment of her mind. Until then, I would suggest we all get some rest.”

 

She glances at the others briefly, but really she’s looking squarely at him by the end, and Lance knows it. He’s the only one out here besides Allura herself who hasn’t even changed, and he’s known her long enough to see the concern in her eyes. 

 

Hunk takes his arm and tugs him gently away from the infirmary. “Come on, man.” 

 

***

 

_ One Week Ago _

 

Lance breathes in the scent of dinner cooking in the Holts’ kitchen and sighs. “I almost wish I didn’t need to go home; your parents can  _ cook _ , Pidge. Almost as good as Hunk.”

 

Pidge looks up from her book, from her spot at the other end of the couch. “Almost?” she teases. 

 

Colleen Holt sticks her head into the living room. “I heard that, Lance.”

 

Pidge answers over her shoulder before Lance can panic. “Mom, I love you but Hunk is basically a gourmet chef.”

 

“Touche,” Colleen laughs. “So you’re not staying, Lance?”

 

At this point he’s lost count of how many times he’s stayed for lunch, or dinner, just in the last few weeks. Sam and Colleen keep asking, and...he thinks they know something. They must. It’s the way they look at him sometimes. 

 

“I can’t tonight,” he says. “My mom has something special planned. Actually I need to head out soon; I’m supposed to go get Luis and his wife and the kids.” It’s much faster to pick them up by lion, after all. It’s a matter of moments to Cuba from here that way. 

 

In a couple of days the Atlas is leaving for several weeks of deep space exploration, and the paladins of Voltron and their lions will all be aboard. There are still scattered factions of hostile Galra, yes, but there’s still time for this - time to do what humans have always wanted to do in space. And Atlas may be more than able to protect itself if needed, but there’s no way any of them are going to miss this. 

 

It’ll be nice to just...be out there. To not need to fight, for once. And Allura can open a wormhole for them and leave enough Altean energy in the rebuilt teladuv on Earth for someone to open it again to bring them back in a few weeks, so it cuts out much of the travel time. It’s kind of perfect. 

 

Colleen smiles softly. “I understand. Take care of my Katie for me while you’re out there? I’d ask her father, but they both get too wrapped up in their science, don’t they?”

 

Lance laughs. Pidge balks. “I fought a WAR, Mom. I can take care of myself!”

 

Her mother comes to the couch to collect her daughter in a hug that Pidge pretends to try to fend off at first, but not for long. “I know.”

 

Maybe that’s another reason Lance can’t keep himself away from here. It’s not even just to play video games anymore. Since that night a few weeks ago, sometimes, like now, they just...sit. Sometimes he’s just here to be here. Around Pidge. Around her family. 

 

“If anything, she takes care of me,” Lance says. He doesn’t think about it before he says it. He isn’t sure what kind of smile he has on his face or what it might be telling anyone else, but when Colleen and Pidge both look at him and Pidge goes bright red, he can feel himself flushing too. 

 

“I-I mean, you know, she’s way smarter than me. Keeps us all out of trouble and all. I mean...never mind.” He gets to his feet. “I um...I should go, actually, if I want to pick up Luis and and his family in time.”

 

Pidge is smiling at him; the blush has faded but it’s still there on her cheeks, if he isn’t crazy and…

 

“Okay,” she says. “See you soon.”

 

“Yeah!” He waves and backs out of the room, so awkwardly it’s painful even for him. 

 

He thinks he’s home free, but Sam Holt is in the foyer. Of course he is. Of course he looks like he’s just sort of waiting. 

 

At least this time Lance knows there’s no reason to be startled by it, but…

 

“It might be easier to tell her before you go back to space together,” Sam says. “Even if it’s just for a few weeks this time.”

 

Lance freezes, blinks. He clears his throat but still nothing comes out for a long moment. 

 

“I…” 

 

Quiznak, he does so much stuttering in this house. 

 

At least, the way Sam is looking at him, he can tell it’s meant to be encouraging, not threatening. Sam looks...glad? Maybe a little teasing? But whatever it is, it’s clear he knows; there isn’t any reason to deny it. 

 

Lance swallows. “It just doesn’t feel right yet. I’m just really figuring it out myself, and Allura and I haven’t been broken up that long and I don’t want to be unfair to either of them and I...you know? I’m sorry if I’m not making sense.”

 

He’s staring at his shoes by then, but a hand on his shoulder makes him look up again.

 

“You’re making perfect sense.” Sam inclines his head. “Well...maybe not ‘perfect’ but I understand what you’re saying,” he chuckles. 

 

“You do?”

 

“Yes. And I appreciate that you feel that way. 

 

Lance crosses his arms tightly. “I just...don’t want to rush into anything else. Pidge is my friend and I kind of...really need that. I don’t want to screw it up, I guess.”

 

He’s expecting some kind of further sage answer, maybe. The kind of thing Sam Holt is known for. He’s not expecting a hug, but that’s what he gets; it’s so unexpected he returns it automatically because he isn’t sure what else to do. 

 

Then the sage answer comes, too. “You kids have been through a lot together. Whether you and Katie are ever something more or not, you’re family. I want you to know you’ll always have a place here.”

 

***

 

_ Now _

 

Lance tried to sleep. He really did. He showered and changed and laid down in his small quarters on the Atlas, but he didn't sleep for more than a couple of hours, and that only from exhaustion.

 

He isn't sure why he went to Pidge's room to find a book, or why he's reading it sitting back in the corridor outside the infirmary again, half wrapped in a blanket as crew members give him strange looks while they pass. But he wants to be here the second there's any news. Allura has already come back from her own rest and disappeared inside, and he's pretty sure Sam never came out.

 

Is Pidge even awake yet? What's going on in there? It's been hours. Again.

 

He isn't alone, at least. Not the whole time. Keith comes and goes. Hunk comes back and sits beside him and stays. Maybe he drifts off again after that, on his friend's shoulder. Maybe there's a better place they could be waiting, too - maybe they're a little in the way here - but Lance can't bring himself to care.

 

The door opens more than once. Every time, it's not who they're waiting for...until it is. When it's Sam. When Lance climbs groggily to his feet, and his chest is already clenching, and why is it doing that? Why is Sam looking at him like that?

 

...why does he have to be so good at reading people? There are a lot of things that, maybe they wouldn't hurt as much, or so soon, if he wasn't. Usually he's glad for the skill but...not today. Not right now.

 

"Sam?" he asks.

 

"Just...just a moment. I've called Shiro down from the bridge. We need to talk to all of you," he says. Allura is behind him and she looks more distressed than she did last time.

 

"What's wrong?" Lance asks.

 

Shiro doesn't seem to waste any time. In a moment he's there and Sam and Allura are beckoning them all into the infirmary. No Pidge yet. Just an empty office.

 

"Katie is awake," Sam says. "We've been...attempting to determine what effect the toxin had on her brain. The good news is that it doesn't seem to have effected memory or cognitive function. Nothing...essential, per se."

 

"Then what?" Hunk asks. "You just...you're scaring us, Sam. Is Pidge okay?"

 

He sighs. "The scans are hard to read. The clouded areas are in places that can deal with functions that are obviously NOT affected, so it was hard to determine what WAS. But—"

 

He stops, and Allura rests a hand on his arm and continues for him. "It seems to have affected her ability to...comprehend or process emotions. Though since the readings are not consistent with conditions in your species that can cause varying levels of those things, it seems more likely that it has impeded her ability to have them at all, much less process them. We can't be certain - emotion is such a subjective thing - and for the most part she still seems very much herself. But there are...differences."

 

"What are you talking about?" Lance asks. He can hear how dull his voice sounds when he says it, and he doesn't like it. Maybe it's...denial? Shock? Confusion? "That doesn't make any sense. How could it have affected just that one thing? How do you even know?"

 

"The way she acts," Sam says quietly. "Something is wrong. I can tell. I know my own daughter."

 

"I-I know you do. I mean...where is she? Can we see her?"

 

"Of course," Allura answer. "We only wanted you to be prepared. And...we will be working to find a way to help her. My alchemy may be of help, though it may take time. And the exact nature of the change may not be quite what we think it is, either. Only time and Pidge herself can tell us that."

 

"What is she saying now?" Shiro asks. “Does she understand that anything is wrong?”

 

Sam sighs. "She’s the one who told US something was different, at first. She can tell something is off, too, but she doesn't seem to be processing any fear or sadness or surprise related to the fact, and sh doesn’t seem concerned about it. It's hard to know what's going on in her mind, and what, exactly has been done to her brain physically, or chemically - we can’t even be sure of that. This is falling beyond our science.”

 

Lance is shaking his head. "But...why would anyone even make a weapon to do something like this to people? What’s the point?” He can hear the voice rising, and the anger in it. His stomach is still twisting.

 

“You’re assuming they wanted to do it to other people,” Keith says. “They could have been looking for a way to do it to themselves.”

 

“What?”

 

Hunk cuts in. “That’s not important right now. What’s important right now is Pidge.”

 

Lance has to force his fingers to unclench. “Right. You said we could see her, right?”

 

When Sam and Allura bring them to Pidge’s room, she’s sitting up in bed, a nurse watching over her. When the door slides open she raises a hand and smiles at them, and for a moment Lance thinks they must be wrong. Or it was all a joke. Pidge is fine, she’s right here, and she’s…

 

But then he realizes the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s not...right. Just an expected social function. A habit. And then even that is gone and he can still see the difference in her eyes. Something isn’t the same and it feels like a punch to the gut. 

 

Lance hangs back in the doorway as the others rush forward to crowd her. They’re hugging her and she’s returning their embraces, but it seems almost mechanical. He’s watching all of them get it - watching their faces fall, watching them try to hide it from each other - and Pidge hasn’t even really said anything and he already can’t breathe. 

 

A hand rests briefly against his back, almost as if to keep him from toppling over.

 

“Sam…?” His voice catches, and Lance doesn’t know what he’s asking, really. Which doesn’t matter, because Sam doesn’t seem to know how to answer. 

 

***

 

_ Thirty-Six Hours Ago _

 

“Look at all this stuff! This is almost better than the labs on the castle - I mean it can’t be without more Altean technology, but this is definitely the best Earth has to offer.”

 

Pidge is spinning in the center of what is now her lab on the Atlas; she looks almost dizzy with giddiness, like she can’t decide what to show him first. 

 

“Lance, I have like six super-computers in here! And a mass spectrometer and—oooohh, have you seen this thing Allura and my dad cooked up? It’s the closest we can get to the kind of databases the castle had; it’s even got Balmeran crystals, and a scanner kind of like the castle’s instruments too. So I guess the mass spectrometer is more of a backup for the prototype scanner, but anyway, who cares?”

 

“How many computers do you need, Pidge?” Lance laughs. 

 

“All of them.”

 

“You’re hopeless.”

 

Pidge smirks. “I know!” Almost as if to illustrate, she trips on her next pass, the next thing she sees and rushes to point out to him. 

 

Lance catches her against his chest, and his face and neck are immediately awash in warmth up to his ears. Pidge is blinking up at him, and for longer than really necessary she doesn’t let go. When she straightens she’s still...too close. Maybe on purpose. 

 

And maybe something would have happened, if a sound outside the open lab door hadn’t startled them. 

 

“Oh! Okay. My bad.” Hunk, who leaves too quickly for Lance to stop him. 

 

“I um...I guess we should actually get ready for that um...the planet we’ll be at soon,” he says instead, to break the tension.

 

“Yeah,” Pidge says sheepishly. “That.”

 

***

 

_ Now _

 

“So how are you…?” Hunk starts to ask the question, but stops and trails off instead. 

 

“Feeling?” Pidge asks. “Physically, just fine. I know there should be more, and it is a little strange, but I’m all right. But Dad told you that, didn’t he?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“We’re just concerned, Pidge,” Shiro admits. Even from where Lance is standing it’s clear Shiro means more than that. 

 

“I know. It’s like all of you to be. But I’m fine. I mean, if Allura can figure out how to fix whatever’s going on, or something, I’m sure that would be good, but I’m really okay.”

 

But of course she would think that, if she can’t feel anything to know not being able to is never something she would have wanted.

 

“It’s actually kind of interesting,” she’s saying. “Fiction can speculate what this would be like, and there have been a handful of people on Earth in the past with rare conditions that made them truly incapable of connecting to emotion in any way, but speculation isn’t certainty.”

 

He can see what Allura meant, now. About her almost seeming normal. The running off at the mouth about science is Pidge. The fascination is all Pidge…

 

But the joy that used to light up her face isn’t there. 

 

She looks up and sees him, in the doorway with her father, and there’s recognition but no happiness in seeing him. No other reaction. And then she’s talking to Sam.

 

“Is there any reason to for me to stay here right now? Unless Allura is ready to try anything.”

 

“Not at the moment,” Allura answers quietly. 

 

Sam sighs. “I suppose not, then. The doctor has no reason to keep you, either.”

 

“I should...get back to the bridge, then,” Shiro says. “We should contact Earth; ask them to open a wormhole for us. We should head back.”

 

“There’s no reason for that,” Pidge says. “If there is a solution, we can look for it just as well out here, and until then I’m still perfectly capable of fulfilling my duties as a paladin and a scientist.”

 

Shiro looks to Sam, who shrugs weakly. “This is your ship, Shiro, but as much I’m inclined to want to go home myself right now, I don’t know what good it would do. As it is, this first run is only meant to be a few weeks...maybe she’s right. She’s the only one of us right now who can say she isn’t swayed by emotion, besides.”

 

Shiro sighs, and there are longs moments of silence before anyone else says anything. 

 

“All right,” he says finally. “We’ll stay on course for now; but I want to be notified immediately if there are any other complications from the accident.”

 

“Of course.”

 

The others fall away as Pidge leaves the infirmary, but Hunk and Allura practically shove Lance after her—pretty much confirming why none of the others are following her now. 

 

“No, Hunk, I—”  _ I can’t right now. Not yet.  _

 

“You’re not really gonna know what you’re dealing with unless you talk to her. This sucks for all of us, man, but of any of us besides her family, you probably need to talk to her most.”

 

So he goes after her, even though every step feels like he’s dragging weights. 

 

“Where are you going?” he asks, when he catches up. 

 

Pidge doesn’t look back at him as make a beeline through the ship; Lance has to weave around a few people she dodges more easily because of her size. “To my lab; I haven’t had a chance to finish calibrating my instruments or arranging the space so it’s more efficient for me.”

 

No mention of why. Nothing about what interrupted her yesterday, or so much as a flinch of embarrassment over avoiding the subject. Nothing. 

 

“Can I...can I come?”

 

“Of course.”

 

A spark of hope. “Oh? You want to show off some more?” He swing around in front of her and tries to smirk, to tease, but Pidge just raises an eyebrow at him.

 

“You’re my friend, Lance. I don’t have a reason to say no unless you decide to be disruptive.”

 

She uses the word ‘friend,’ but the flat way she says it, it doesn’t really mean anything. It sounds like a word she knows she’s supposed to use. Like the way she smiled when they came into her room in the infirmary seemed like nothing more than a held-over habit—not anything she connected to. 

 

“Right…” He takes her hand to slow her to a stop. “Pidge…”

 

_ Please be in there. Please. They can’t be right. Please… _

 

She looks at him, and mild confusion is the only thing in her face. She doesn’t even try to pull away. “Lance, I have work to do.”

 

“W-we’re not on the castle anymore, you know,” he says. “The war’s not as big a deal. That’s why we’re OUT here. We can have fun. We brought the console; you want to play? You just got out of the infirmary; you shouldn’t be working now.”

 

“There’s no reason not to when I’m fine. You can come to the lab with me - I understand that you’re a companionship-oriented person, and I don’t mind the company - but playing games is a waste of time if there are no new skills to be learned.”

 

Lance blinks. “What?”

 

He drops her hand. Pidge waits a moment or two, but when he doesn’t move to continue following her she leaves him behind. 

 

***

 

Allura finds him on the floor on the observation deck, in the dark with his back in a corner. He thought maybe the passing stars would help, but they haven’t.

 

“Lance…?” She sits beside him, and he can’t help but remember the last time they sat like this. Just a few weeks ago.

 

Everything is so different now.

 

“Please tell me you can fix her,” he says quietly.

 

“I...I hope I can. I don’t know.”

 

“What happens if you can’t? What if she never…?” His chest constricts, but he can’t cry. He’s tried. It won’t come. 

 

Allura reaches for one of his hands, wrapped tightly around his knees, and squeezes her fingers in to hold it. 

 

Lance lets out an uneven breath. “Allura...I think I love her.”

 

“Of course you do; we all—”

 

“N-no, I mean...I love her. But I haven’t really known for long! And if it had anything to do with why we didn’t work out I’m so sorry, I didn’t know then but I...I’m in love with her.”

 

“Oh, Lance…”

 

“And-and what if this is it? What if she’s stuck like this and I’ve lost her already? What am I supposed to do?”

 

He can’t breathe again, but there are still no tears. Allura pulls him into her side, and all he can do is hide his face in her sleeve and shiver. 


	3. Chapter 3

_ Now _

 

Emotional hangover headaches are definitely a thing. Lance wakes the next morning with the worst one he’s had in a long time. 

 

He feels cold and clammy as he stumbles out of bed and into the small shower down the hall, and he groans quietly to himself when a soft beeping from a panel in the stall tells him his time is up. The Atlas can only carry so much water, after all. It may have turned out to be somewhat magical itself, but it’s not the same as the castle. She has her limits. 

 

The water cuts off, and Lance lets his head thunk against metal wall, trying to figure out if the last day or two really happened. 

 

When he returns to his room he’s tempted to crawl back into bed now that he’s clean; it seems to take too much energy just to get his uniform on. At least it’s not that awful orange anymore. 

 

It feels like dragging his feet to make it to the cafeteria though, and no one he really knows is there. It’s an odd time; too late for breakfast for most of the crew, and he should have been up far earlier. He wonders why no one woke him. Technically they have shifts, duties...his should have started two vargas ago and he hasn’t heard a word. Maybe they’re leaving him alone on purpose. It’s all a little more loose for the paladins anyway.

 

Well...fine. Lance chokes down a few bites before his throat refuses to swallow anymore. 

 

But what now? They won’t reach the next planet for a couple of days, and...he can’t do anything else. He can’t help Pidge. He can’t...think.

 

He should find her, though. He doesn’t want her to look back if-- _ when _ \--they find a way to cure her, and think he didn’t care enough to be there for her. He does want to, it just…

 

His chest aches, but he tells himself to ignore it.

 

Pidge isn’t in her lab when he looks for her, which doesn’t make sense after yesterday. She seemed so focused on work. He checks the infirmary, Sam’s lab, her quarters--even the bridge, where Shiro gives him one of those concerned looks--but no Pidge.

 

He doesn’t expect to find her, finally, in the lion hangar, staring up at Green. She doesn’t look troubled, of course she doesn’t, but something still feels odd as he approaches.

 

“Pidge…?”

 

Lance stops a few feet shy of her when he realizes what it is. 

 

Pidge is standing right here, but Green’s barrier is still up.

 

“Pidge?” he asks again. He can hear the urgency in his voice, but she doesn’t react to it. She doesn’t look his way, either.

 

“Green isn’t responding to me,” she says. “I suppose I should have expected it; after all, even though she is a more logical personality, the bonds with the lions are still very emotional in nature. And my side of that equation isn’t possible right now.”

 

Lance swallows. “I-it’s okay. We’ll figure out how to fix this. You’ll be back in your lion in no time.”

 

Pidge shrugs. “There’s no need to make promises you may not be able to keep, Lance.”

 

“I’m not—I mean…”

 

“It’s all right, it’s habit for you. You try to reassure people. There’s merit in it at times, certainly, but I don’t need it. Not now, anyway.”

 

Lance blinks. She did that yesterday—throwing out an overarching observation about him like that. Like they were things she thought about all the time, but never said. Not until now, without emotions like timidity or embarrassment to keep her from just saying them.

 

It doesn’t escape him that even now, she’d framed them as good things--or not bad things, anyway. Both times. But why would she have been thinking about them before? Why did those things matter to her? 

 

But...if he really tries to think about why, it’s only going to hurt more. He knows it will. Best to save that until Pidge is herself again. 

 

He closes the distance between them to place a tentative hand on her shoulder. She looks at him, finally, when he does it, but where the Pidge he knew from two days ago would surely have been upset about not being able to reach her lion...there’s nothing now. And he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to that. He hopes more than anything he won’t have to. 

 

“You don’t mind if I say stuff like that anyway, do you? It may not do anything for you right now, but, you know...it still helps the rest of us.”

 

Pidge doesn’t bat an eye. “Of course.”

 

“Thanks…” He lets his hand drop back to his side. “Pidge, you…? You do want us to fix it, right?”

 

She raises an eyebrow at him, and if he didn’t feel like his stomach was in a meat grinder he might enjoy how cute she looks doing it. It’s very Spock.

 

But even Spock actually had emotions under there somewhere.

 

“I don’t have a personal preference,” she tells him. “On one hand, even with less than twenty-four hours of data to draw from I can estimate staying with way would leave me personally more efficient, but on the other I’m aware it wouldn’t be ideal for the team. All of you will be far too focused on the issue to be as efficient as you could be in other areas until this is resolved.”

 

Lance smirks, but he’s pretty sure it comes out tired. “Are you accusing us of being unprofessional?”

 

“No. Merely human.”

 

“I see…”

 

“In any case, the situation is certainly not ideal now that it seems it might be necessary to find a new paladin before forming Voltron would be possible again.”

 

“We won’t have to do that,” Lance says quickly.

 

“I know it would be preferable not to have to go to the trouble.”

 

Lance opens his mouth again to tell her that isn’t why he’s so adamant at all, but he thinks a part of her knows. She may not be feeling emotions herself, but either she’s always been good at analyzing the rest of them and she’s only now able to voice those observations, or not having her own emotions in the way has made her even better at it.

 

Or both.

 

“Anyway,” he sighs. “So if we find a way, you’ll let us try?”

 

“Yes.”

 

***

 

“Lance, are you sure about this?” Veronica asks again.

 

“Does it necessarily have to be you?” Sam questions. “I’d be happy to let Allura rummage around in my brain, too.”

 

Veronica crosses her arms tightly over her chest. “Or mine.”

 

Allura settles beside Lance on the edge of the infirmary bed he’s perched on. “As much as I appreciate your offers, your brains are older and fully developed. Lance and Hunk are really the only two humans on board young enough to have brains that are still developing the way Pidge’s should be. If I’m going to gain an understanding of what a human brain in later adolescence  _ should  _ feel like, and how it _ should _ operate, it has to be one of them, I’m afraid.”

 

Sam sighs. “I know that. I should know that.” His eyes close briefly, and Lance reaches out to touch his sleeve. 

 

“It’ll be fine,” he says, both to Sam and his sister. “I trust Allura.”

 

But Allura ia already making a face when he turns back to her.

 

“What?”

 

“You...you should be sure, Lance. This may not be...easy. This is so much more complicated than transferring a consciousness from a lion that was willing to help me to an unconscious body, or relatively simple physical healing or energy manipulation in comparison. This is testing the limits of what I learned in Oriande, if it is even possible.”

 

“You’re not gonna hurt me, Allura.”

 

“...I might.”

 

He swallows and takes her hands. He knew that. She’d already tried to warn him once, when she asked that they do this here just in case. A doctor is standing by. 

 

“That’s okay too. We have to do this. It isn’t even a question for me.”

 

“Lance,” Veronica says sharply. He already knew this was dangerous but she didn’t; not until now. He hadn’t wanted to give her the opportunity to try to talk him out of it any sooner.

 

“It’s my decision, okay?”

 

“What about the rest of your team? What do they think?”

 

Lance smiles a little. “Where do you think they are? They’re keeping Pidge distracted.” Hunk even tried to offer to do it himself, but Lance wasn’t having any of it. 

 

After leaving the hangar this morning he came straight to Allura to see how she doing on a plan. It looked like she and Coran had been up all night trying to decide the best course of action. That was when she told him she needed his help. 

 

“Of course,” he told her then. “Anything you need. Just get some rest first?”

 

Veronica seems to understand now, but she’s still grumbling. “I just don’t like to see you put yourself in danger.”

 

She went there. Of course she did. Lance sees the opportunity and takes it. “That’s very sweet, but knock it off.”

 

She snorts. “Fine. Guess I walked right into that one.”

 

“You really did. Anyway...I’m ready if you are, Allura.”

 

She lets out a breath. “I am as ready as I can be.”

 

They turn to face each other on the edge of the infirmary bed, and Allura places her hands on either side of his face, fingertips at his temples. When she closes her eyes Lance does too. It doesn’t really matter, he supposes, but it seems like the right thing to do. Maybe he should be trying to...focus, or whatever. Help. Somehow. 

 

He can feel the warmth of Allura’s energy on his skin; the blue glow seeps through his eyelids. He wonders if this is what he would have felt if he’d been awake when she used her alchemy to  save him before. 

 

But he only wonders for a moment. He doesn’t like to dwell on that day. 

 

Allura’s fingers shift against his face. “Lance...it’s all right. I need you to relax your mind, if you can.”

 

He frowns, eyes still closed. “What do you mean? I thought I was?”

 

“You...hmm. You may not be conscious of it. But we can come back to that; I have the physical aspects of your brain to familiarize myself with first.”

 

“Okay…”

 

Lance opens his eyes briefly to see Allura’s still closed--her brow furrowed in that way she has when she concentrates. Not unlike the way Pidge looks when she does. Something in his chest warms and…

 

How can he love both of them so much? When did that even happen? And when did the differences...change? A year ago, sitting this close to Allura, watching her face like this...even two months ago...he would have been blushing. Or something. Now all he wants is to protect her. He wants her to be happy. 

 

The feelings for Allura, he’s beginning to realize, have become no different, really, than what he feels for Veronica, or Rachel. Maybe they were different once, but it doesn’t matter now. He wouldn’t trade the friendship he has with Allura now for anything. 

 

Veronica tilts her head at him when he glances at her.

 

_ What? _ he mouths. She just shrugs. He’ll ask her later. 

 

Lance turns back to Allura, all of them quiet as she focuses, and for a while there is comfortable silence. A faint ache pushes into Lance’s head, radiating from his temples, but surely that’s expected with someone probing around in his brain with strong energy. He can almost feel it--like tingling fingers exploring the inside of his head. Taking in how his synapses are put together. 

 

“Are you all right?” Allura asks.

 

“Yeah, it’s just kind of...weird, I guess.”

 

“I suppose it is; you may be experiencing some discomfort, but please tell me immediately if it gets any worse. I don’t want to harm you.”

 

“Yeah, yeah…”

 

But the dull ache is all there is. No worse than the headache he woke up with this morning, really. 

 

Until it is.

 

Allura warns him. She lets him know she has enough information about his brain physically--that she’s going to try to enter his mind again. She warned him before, too. When she first asked for his help. 

 

“It may be...awkward. For us. Just...due to recent events. Perhaps I should ask Hunk.”

 

“He’d do it, but no, it’s okay, really; I want to do this, Allura.”

 

Lance thinks he’s ready for that. He thinks he’s ready to open his mind her. He wants to, but he can feel her running into a wall he never meant to put up anyway.

 

And it hurts.

 

He hears himself shouting. Allura gasps and starts to withdraw but he catches her wrists and holds her hands where they are on his head. 

 

“N-No, what are you doing! Keep going!”

 

“Lance, I am hurting you; your mind is reacting to the intrusion.”

 

“So tell it to shut up,” he gasps. “Or...or something.”

 

“Lance…!” Veronica’s voice. He ignores it. A hand is at his back now; maybe Sam?

 

“Allura, y-you have find a way around this your can’t help Pidge; what if her mind does the same thing? Please...come...come on...just…” It’s hard to pry his eyes open again, but he has to look at her. Her are open now. Alarmed. He has to let her know it’s okay. “Please.”

 

Allura swallows, but she adjusts her grip and leans in again. 

 

Lance lets his hands fall, and someone takes one of them. Veronica. He doesn’t having any qualms with squeezing hers as his head screams at him. His chest heaves and he knows there are tears on his face, but it doesn’t matter. He can do this. He has to do this…

 

_ I’m so sorry, Lance, are you all right?  _ Allura’s voice, as the pain finally begins to fade. But she isn’t speaking aloud.

 

_ I...I guess so? Are you in my head now?  _ The feeling of an affirmative answers him more than words.  _ What happened? _

 

_ It’s difficult to explain. I’m sorry I hurt you. _

 

_ This is worth it. Besides...it wasn’t really you hurting me, was it? _

 

_ In a sense, no...but in any case. I can bypass a response like that in future, I think. With anyone.  _

 

_ Good.  _

 

_ I still need to get a feel for a human emotional landscape, but perhaps we should wait. You should rest. And we should examine you to be sure no damage was done. _

 

Lance frowns.  _ But I’m okay… _

 

_ Please? For me, Lance. Let’s be certain. _

 

He sighs aloud. “Okay.”

 

Allura withdraws her hands, and when he opens his eyes the pain has faded to a harsh ache. He sways, dizzy, and the hand at his back moves in around his shoulder.

 

“You okay, son?”

 

Lance clears his throat. “I um...yeah, Sam, thanks. I just…” He swipes at his face to dry the tears and realizes his hands are trembling. He scowls at them, and Veronica is already calling for the doctor, but in the end they don’t find anything wrong. Not really. 

 

“I told you I was fine,” he tells Allura. He’s trying to tease--to make her feel better--but the smile she gives him in return is weak.

 

“I’d still like to keep you tonight,” the doctor cuts in. “You’re still in some pain, and we’re not sure why; it would be better to keep an eye on you.”

 

“It’s just a headache,” Lance grumbles. 

 

“That you got from letting your alien friend mess around in your brain,” Veronica retorts.

 

“Hey, this is not Allura’s  _ fault _ —”

 

“I didn’t say it was; I’m just stating facts…”

 

Allura squeezes his shoulder. “The doctor is right, Lance; it would be better to be sure. I would feel better if you stayed. I’ll stay with you, if you like.”

 

Lance chuckles quietly. “That’s okay. I mean you can if you want to, but it’s fine; I’ll stay.”

 

***

 

A new weight on the edge of the bed rouses Lance from sleep, waking him in the kind of sudden way that makes him sit up with a gasp. His head pounds out its protest, but at least it doesn’t hurt as much as it did before the doctor had to give him a sedative to help him actually get to sleep. 

 

A small figure shifts in the dimness of the infirmary. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to startle you.”

 

Lance rubs at his temples, wincing. “Pidge? What are you doing here?” When he finds a clock in the dark, he realizes it’s the middle of the night. “It’s late.”

 

“Hunk finally told me what you’d been doing--where you disappeared to. What you were doing you were doing for my benefit, so it seemed customary to check on you.”

 

He snorts quietly. “In the middle of the night?”

 

“I was working.”

 

“Yeah, well...thanks. I guess.” He can’t find it in himself to frustrated with her. 

 

“It wasn’t necessary to put yourself in danger.”

 

“Now you sound like Veronica.”

 

Pidge just blinks at him. “It isn’t reasonable to risk having two paladins out of commission when one is already unable to fly.”

 

Lance let out a quiet breath and leans forward. “In this case, it is to me,” he answers. “You need to know that.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I hope you’ll remember that when you’re back to normal.”

 

“I meant why is it reasonable to you?”

 

“I…” Lance hesitates. “I don’t think I should explain it right now.”

 

Silence, for a moment. “You want to wait to tell me until I’m myself again.”

 

He nods slowly. “Yeah...I guess.”

 

“What if we’re unable to find a solution, and I stay this way?”

 

“You  _ won’t. _ ”

 

Why does she keep asking those questions? He knows they won’t bother her right now, but she’s also said she still...understands, somehow, what the rest of them are going through. In an objective sort of way. If she knows it will hurt him to ask why does she ask?

 

But she raises an eyebrow at him like she did this morning, and she does it again. “But if I did?”

 

He stares at her longer this time. She’s looking at him with those eyes he’s always been sure could see right through him and…

 

Something in his gut twists, and he knows what she’s doing. 

 

She’s trying to make him think about it. She’s trying to prepare him for the worst. 

 

Without emotions she may only be doing it because she knows it will be better for the workings of the team if they’re all prepared, but…

 

There has to be part of her that’s doing it for him. He has to believe that. 

 

“Pidge…”

 

His eyes drift shut. He can hear her laughing in his memory and he’s not ready to let it go. 

 

“We’re not giving up, okay? _ I’m _ not. If…” His throat clogs briefly, and he has to swallow a few times to clear it. “I-If it comes to that I’ll deal with it then.”

 

_ Please don’t ask me to let you go before I have to.  _


	4. Chapter 4

Lance sleeps only fitfully the remainder of the night, finally waking for good still far too early to stare at the infirmary ceiling in the dimness. 

 

How was he supposed to rest well after Pidge’s visit last night? He can’t stop turning it over in his mind. 

 

He’s up before the rest of the ship, smoothing out the rumpled clothes he never changed out of and pulling his uniform jacket back on. The nurse tries to stop him on the way out the door.

 

“You shouldn’t be leaving yet; when the doctor comes in for the day he—”

 

“I’m fine! Nothing happened last night, my head feels better, and I’m fine.” He lets her run a scan, which shows nothing out of the ordinary. She still tries to convince him to stay, but he brushes past her anyway. 

 

He reaches Allura’s door and starts pounding on it before he really remembers how early it is. He’s already apologizing when she answers the door, fastening the clasps of her robe.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s too early, I—”

 

“Lance? Shouldn’t you still be in the infirmary?”

 

“Probably…”

 

“Are you feeling all right?”

 

“Physically, mostly, my head’s mostly better; but I should go. I can come back later.”

 

Allura smooths the flyaway strands of her hair down with one hand as as she steps back and beckons him inside with the other. “It’s all right.” Her concern gives way to a bit of a smile. “Please, come in before you wake the entire corridor?”

 

Lance winces, his face heating in embarrassment as he ducks inside because she’s right; he’s already made far too much noise out here.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says again as the door closes. “I just...Pidge came to see me last night. It kind of freaked me out.”

 

“How so?”

 

“She just...kept asking me questions. Like what if we CAN’T help her? Like she was trying to prepare me or something. Like a part of her has already given up.”

 

“I’m sure it isn’t that,” Allura says gently. “She’s merely aware of the possibility, and doesn’t have the sort of emotions that would usually get in the way of admitting something like that. I’m sure she only meant to be helpful.”

 

“I-I know, I know...but…” He crosses his arms tightly. “It scared me,” he admits, quiet. Allura rests a hand on his shoulder and he swallows. “Can...can we finish whatever else you need to do? It’s not dangerous anymore, right? You know how to get in? Please.”

 

Allura studies him for a moment. Something in his face must tell her that he needs this right now, because she doesn’t question him where usually she would. She still seems concerned, but she nods. 

 

“All right. Give me a few doboshes?”

 

Lance nods quickly. Of course. Rather than pace as she disappears into the bathroom off the side of her quarters he makes himself sit down at the short round table in the corner, but his foot is still tapping the floor. 

 

He tries to take stock one more time. Just to be sure he isn’t lying to Allura. He does feel better; his head still aches dully, but the pain is barely there anymore. Just a vague reminder of yesterday. He isn’t shaking anymore. He’s just...tired. But that can be fixed once this is over. Once Pidge is herself again. He doesn’t know if he’ll sleep well until she is.

 

Allura emerges freshened and more alert, hair brushed but still down and her face a bit damp from cleaning. She has that determined look on her face, and Lance has never been more grateful to see it. 

 

She joins him at the table, nudging the other chair closer to his until their knees brush together. “You’re certain you want to do this now?” Now she asks, but he doesn’t mind that she cares. “I’m all right, but you seem more tired. There may be things you don’t wish for me to see...it may be harder for you to hold them back.”

 

Lance shakes his head and shrugs. “I don’t have anything to hide. Not from you. Besides; as bad an idea as walls turned out to be last time I’d rather just...not.”

 

“I don’t believe you did that consciously. I think, more than anything, it was your human mind reacting to someone attempting to push into it. It’s not a sensation your species is built for.”

 

“Because we’re not telepathic, or whatever.”

 

“Precisely.” Allura shrugs a bit. “Though technically Alteans are not either, but we do have more, I suppose you would say sensitivities, due to our abilities. Particularly sacred Alteans like myself. But my alchemy is the only reason I can do what I’m about to do.”

 

Lance nods. He sort of gets what she’s saying. Sort of. But right now he just wants to get going with this, and Allura seems to understand that. She reaches for his temples again, like yesterday. 

 

“This may be...intense,” she says, apologetic. “And this is the part that I meant might be more awkward.”

 

“It’s okay; like I said, I don’t have anything to hide from you.”

 

This time there is no wall; it feels more like a thin film that Allura pushes gently through, coaxing it to cooperate. And then Lance can feel her there, in his mind, like those last few moments yesterday.

 

_ Now what? _ he thinks.

 

_ Now the difficult part. _

 

And it is difficult. She reaches into the part of his mind where his emotions coil together and live and despite her delicate touch the backlash is immediate. Remnants of feeling and glimpses of the memories they attach to flash before him at a dizzying speed, but somehow each one hits him as if it were happening all over again.

 

Homesickness. Staring out at the lonely stars from the castle’s observation deck. Every insecurity he felt. The pang of losing the castle that Allura feels, too. The pain and of dying at the shield and terror of realizing he’d almost...been gone. That he would be dead if it weren’t for Allura. The shock of realizing what had happened to Earth when they returned. The grief when he realized his grandparents were gone. Every gut-wrenching feeling he’d been through the last couple of days multiplied. More intense. 

 

His face his wet. His fingers clasp at his shoulders, holding on tightly as he gasps between sobs, and in a feeling that isn’t quite words Allura is apologizing. The bad first, so we can end with the good, she’s saying. So sorry, so so sorry…

 

The tension in Lance’s shoulders eases as the tide turns. Bittersweet feelings and other muddled things, first. Seeing his family again even though Earth had been taken. The relief of having Shiro back even though he still felt guilty then, for not noticing what was wrong sooner. 

 

Then less muddled things. The joy of flying Blue for the first time, though even there is the slight annoyance he felt from the others pulling at his clothes and Keith’s cutting comments, before they really knew each other. The elation when he received his acceptance letter from the Garrison is tinged with the sadness of leaving home.  The moment he realized he had feelings for Pidge is tinged with uncertainty. 

 

And he realizes...emotions are never really straightforward, are they? 

 

_ No, never really _ , Allura says in his mind.  _ But I think it’s something most species have in common. It’s something that binds us all together, I suppose.  _ She pauses.  _ Are you all right? _

 

_ I...I don’t know.  _

 

His fingers are trembling where they’re clenched in his own sleeves. His chest feels shaky as he breathes. But he’s smiling, too. The joy from the better memories pushes at his lips almost of its’ own accord, bubbling up and out, and Allura was probably smart to do it the way she did, or he would still be even more of a mess. His chest aches, too, from sobbing before. When the memories were worse at the beginning. When the harder emotions hit him as if fresh. 

 

Allura seems to be wrapping up when she catches on one particularly warm feeling. A particular moment significant to both of them. She nudges at it, almost if asking permission to look, and he lets her. 

 

The Garrison hospital. Sitting propped together in her bed watching the evening sky’s colors through the wide windows. Their first kiss, gentle and tentative before it became hungry. Allura’s laugh echoing softly from the walls afterward.

 

_ You still remember this so fondly… _ Allura trails. Almost as if she still feels guilty.

 

_ Even if we didn’t work out that way, it’s a nice memory to have.  _ Another wave of guilt from Allura.  _ Stop it. It’s not your fault. _

 

_ I am sorry, Lance. _

 

_ Don’t be.  _ He pauses.  _ Were you happy? Even if it was just for a little while? I...I wanted to make you happy.  _

 

Allura leans forward, fingers still at his temples, and brushes her lips against his forehead. In his mind she pulls her own memory forward and offers it to him. The warmth she felt when he held her hand in bed that day, his finger twined with hers, and the blush that stayed on her cheeks even after he went back to his room. The quiet elation in her chest then. 

 

_ I was happy. It was nice just to be...a girl, for a time. Young and loved. You gave that to me.  _

 

“I’m glad,” Lance whispers. She deserves that. Allura deserves to be happy. 

 

“So do you,” she tells him. Her forehead rests against his, both of them tired now. “And I will do everything within my power to see that you and Pidge get the opportunity to find out if it’s meant to be with her.”

 

Because it isn’t supposed to be Allura. Not like that. And for the first time, when Lance thinks it, it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. The memories of their brief time together stretch out in his mind. Their minds. He turns the last of the pain over, wanting to be rid of it. Thinking, maybe, that he’s ready. He can feel Allura’s grip on her own guilt loosening.

 

She smiles. 

 

And together they let it go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I felt like this kind of needed it’s own chapter. But the next update should come relatively soon! I’d love to hear what you think though, and thank you so much for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Allura is in uniform when she emerges from the bathroom again, just pushing a final pin into her hair that’s now up. Lance is still at the table, trying to stave off the last of the shivering running through him with the blanket the princess settled around his shoulders before she went to get dressed.

“So you have everything you need now?” he asks.

“I believe so,” she says. “How are you doing?”

Lance lets out a breath and gets to his feet, leaving the blanket behind. A final shiver runs through his shoulders, but with a deep breath it seems to finally have stopped. “I’m okay. I should get out of your way. I um…just…thank you.”

She pulls him into a hug, and he isn’t going to say no to that. Not now.

“Of course,” she says.

“How much time do you need? When do you think you can try…?”

Allura shrugs as she releases him. “Soon. We’ll be arriving at the gas giant we’re planning to study later this morning; we’ll be out most of the afternoon collecting scans and samples. But perhaps tomorrow? That should give me enough time to collect my thoughts.”

“You think so?”

“I’ll speak with Pidge and her father and the doctors. Shiro as well. If everyone agrees I don’t see why not. After all, the sooner we can have Pidge back in her lion, the better.”

“Yeah…”

Allura tilts her head at him. “You should try to get some rest before we reach the gas giant.”

Lance winces. “Maybe. I’m gonna hit the showers at least.”

***

When Lance comes out of Allura’s room, it’s still relatively early. He expects to be alone in the corridor.

He isn’t. He looks up as the door closes behind him and Pidge is there, just coming out of her own room. Staring at him. His cheeks color immediately, horribly of aware of how this probably looks. He opens his mouth to say something, but she’s already turning and walking away.

“P-Pidge, wait!” He takes quick strides to catch up, reaching out as he goes. He nearly grabs her arm, but at a brush of her sleeve she turns back silently to look at him. “Pidge…th-this isn’t what it looks like, I swear.”

“What does it look like?”

“I…” He makes a face. “Never mind. But it isn’t! I was just helping Allura—“

“You don’t need to justify yourself to me.”

“Yes, I do!”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to think Allura and I are…together again, or anything. It’s not like that. She had to finish looking around in my head and everything so she can help YOU.”

Pidge shrugs once. “You only recently ended your relationship with the princess; it would be reasonable of both you to want to give it another try, especially considering the current circumstances.”

“We’re not! I told you, that’s not what—circumstances?”

She’s silent for a moment before she answers him. As if assessing if it makes sense to say what she says next. “That I may never be able to return the feelings you have for me.”

Lance isn’t sure he heard that correctly. It takes him a moment to remember to breathe. “The…what? You…you know? How…?”

She faces him more fully, nodding a bit. “It’s been clear for some time now. Until what happened I was too quick to dismiss it as wishful thinking due to my own, but it’s easier to see now.”

Lance reaches out to the corridor wall for support. “Pidge…?” She knew? And she…?

“I understand that your feelings were likely what you didn’t want to tell me about last night.”

“Yeah…”

“I apologize; I seem to have upset you.”

It hurts. He should be happy. Elated. A week ago this would have been the moment he’s been waiting for for…only weeks, really, but somehow…for so much longer.

But now it just hurts. His other hand clenches at his side; part of him wants to be angry, but it isn’t her fault she’s so blunt. She’s not completely tactless even this way as it is. At least she’s apologizing for the sudden…whatever just happened.

“You’re saying…you have…had…f-feelings for me. Too. Before? And-and you knew that I—?”

“I was under the impression you were aware of it, too.”

Lance swallows. Maybe he had been. “That’s why you came last night.”

She knew. Was she trying to keep him from being hurt later? Maybe it’s only logic to her now, but it had to have come from somewhere. Thoughts or knowledge or instincts she had…before.

“Yes,” she says. “Was I not straightforward enough then?”

“No, no, you were pretty clear, I’m just…I’m just an idiot, I guess.”

Pidge raises an eyebrow. “You may not be at my level, admittedly, but you’re certainly not lacking in intelligence at all; the Garrison would never have admitted you if that were the case, and I can personally attest to your quick and creative thinking.”

Lance straightens in surprise. “What?”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said.” He laughs weakly, blinking to push back the sudden dampness in his eyes. “Pidge, I…look, I still hope we can get you back to normal soon, but there ARE a few things I kind of like about this you.”

She doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. “Will you be all right? I should be going. I’m meeting my dad for breakfast. He seems concerned that I might become too ‘disconnected,’ as he puts it. He’s insisted on a certain roster of social activities.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be okay; you should go.”

Pidge nods and heads off for the cafeteria, leaving Lance in the corridor. Not for the first time since all of this started.

But this time it hurts just a little less.

***

When Lance makes it back to the cafeteria after showering and changing, he doesn’t find many people he knows. Again. It’s too late for breakfast for most people. Again. Just like yesterday. And he hasn’t seen much of Keith and Hunk in a day or so. He isn’t sure what they’re up to.

There’s no sign of Pidge, but Sam is still here—at a table in the corner with empty dishes still spread in front of him, staring at nothing and seemingly lost in thought. But Lance knows that look. He’s seen it in the mirror enough the last couple of days.

He finds himself drifting that direction. “I thought Pidge was meeting you here earlier.”

Sam blinks up at him, as if surprised to be interrupted. “Oh, she did. She left not long ago to get back to her lab; I’m just…here,” he sighs.

“Oh.” Lance knows that feeling, too. This Pidge doesn’t mean to hurt anyone; she’s just straightforward, focused. Sometimes the things she says without thinking can be good, but sometimes not. How quickly she moves on to the next thing on her list can hurt, too. “I uh…mind if I join you?”

Sam gives him a brittle smile. “Of course not.”

Lance slides onto the bench across from him and eats in silence at first. Sam seems more comfortable going back to staring off somewhere, and for a while that’s best for both of them.

“Katie told me about your run-in this morning.”

Lance freezes with a bite of waffle halfway to his mouth. His hand falls back to the table. “She knew,” he says quietly. “I mean I should have known she knew; we kind of all…knew, I guess. I know you did…” He trails off and winces when he realizes he’s rambling.

“Sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this whole thing is for you; I don’t want to add to that. Just…ignore me.”

“I brought it up.” Sam leans over his arms on the table. “Lance, when I told you you were family, I meant it. That doesn’t just apply to raiding my refrigerator during midnight gaming sessions with my daughter. You can talk to me. Or I hope you feel like you can, anyway.”

Lance manages to answer this time; he couldn’t a week ago. “Thank you…”

“Besides,” Sam says. “Who else am ‘I’ going to talk to out here? No one other than you kids…no one else on this ship cares about her as much as I do.” He winces. “You’re her family too. You understand.”

“I…yeah. Yeah. You can talk at me as much as you want.”

***

There are a couple of hours of downtime before the mission, and Lance isn’t sure what to do with them. He heads back to his quarters, thinking maybe he should take Allura’s advice and try to get some more rest, but when he rounds the corner Keith and Hunk are outside his door as if they were looking for him.

“There he is…” Keith says.

“Guys? What are you doing? Where have you been, anyway?” Both of them are in rumpled uniforms. “You don’t look much more awake than me..”

“We’re definitely not,” Hunk snorts. “Anyway, come on; you need to see something.”

“Like what?”

They drag him to Hunk’s workshop, where no fewer than five computers are working and bits of disemboweled technology are strewn everywhere. He recognizes a few small pieces from the planet where Pidge was poisoned.

“What have you been doing in here?”

Hunk shrugs. “Trying to decipher as much as we can from the chips and stuff we managed to grab from that planet before we had to high-tail it back to the lions. And I’m telling you even with MY skills and Pidge’s translation algorithms it has NOT been easy, but…”

Keith sighs. “Remember what I said? Back in the infirmary?”

“Not really; there’s kind of been a lot going on.”

“About…why a civilization might have tried to create something that would do what that toxin did to Pidge.”

Lance blinks, but he can’t remember anything specific. He’s just…too tired. He shakes his head. “I don’t, what?”

“That maybe it wasn’t a weapon. Maybe they were trying to do it to themselves.”

Lance makes a face. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“The Vulcans purposefully created a society where they suppressed all emotion the majority of the time…” Keith trails off at they stare at him. “What?”

Hunk snickers. “Okay, A) they’re fictional, and B) you watched Star Trek?”

“My dad had a child with an alien; what else was he going to watch with me!”

“Okay, guys?” Lance asks tiredly. “As much as I’d love to debate Kirk or Picard—”

“Kirk. Obviously,” Keith huffs.

“Mullet, my brain is literally going to explode if you don’t stop.”

Hunk makes waving motions to get their attention. “Yeah. Could we not explode Lance? Okay listen. Actually, from what we’ve been able to decode, I think this species may have been telepathic.”

***

“Telepathic?” Allura says. Half a varga later and they’ve dragged her to the workshop to go over it all again.

“Yeah,” Hunk sighs. “The details we’ve been able to make out are sketchy, but it’s like…they were trying to stop war from happening or something. They…fused their science and their telepathy and…made this stuff. Somehow.”

Lance’s stomach is twisting with anxiety. There’s more to it than that–pieces of detail here and there Hunk and Keith pointed out to him earlier. Failed versions of the experiment. Mentions of the wars that led to it. The thought processes of those behind it. Even after everything that had happened, to plan to do that to their own people…

“Sorry, reading alien languages isn’t really my specialty,” Hunk is telling Allura. “If you and Pidge helped we could probably get more of it, but we wanted to find out if any of this stuff was useful to begin with.”

Allura leans over the desk, studying the strewn data pads. “It’s all right, Hunk. This is helpful already; it’s only…now I’m concerned. Telepathy does not necessarily mean magic, but it could. And that might explain how the toxin survived thousands of years. But in either case, what they seem to be saying here about their telepathy…using it to fuel the experiment…”

“It means it might not be just a medical or mental problem that needs to be fixed,” Lance says with a wince. “Doesn’t it?”

“Correct…” Allura rests a hand on his arm briefly. “But I will still try tomorrow, as we’ve planned. This does not have to mean that helping Pidge will be more difficult. I am somewhat concerned because it may, but this does not mean it has to.”

***

“You seem distracted.”

Lance sighs and punches up another scan display to be sure the data is recording correctly and they’re on the course Pidge plotted for them. Behind him, Pidge is cross-legged on the floor of Red’s cockpit with her computers.

“Because I am,” he says. “I mean, if I’m gonna do it I guess this is a good mission to do it on. Pretty straightforward. Collect the samples. Scan the…stuff. Anyway.” Lance squints out Red’s front dash at the gas giant and the colorful nebula that surrounds it. Coran had been going on about it having some interesting properties or something.

“I used to get so excited every time we saw something like this. Like…when I first got into the Garrison I felt like I was never really sure I’d make it through the program and ever get to go to space in the first place, and then I was seeing stuff like this every day. Now I’m just…it’s almost like it doesn’t matter. Is that bad?”

He glances back at Pidge, who raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry, you’re not the best person to be asking that right now, I know.”

She shrugs. “It’s perfectly normal for the human brain to become accustomed to certain things.”

“Yeah, but…nevermind.” He sighs. Maybe it’s because he’s still anxious about tomorrow. But she knows, now, and she’s agreed, but of course she isn’t…

“Lance?”

He doesn’t mean to flinch. But the way she says his name is as close to normal as she’s sounded since all of this began.

“Sorry, what?”

“Are you all right?” It’s not asked in the same way she would usually ask it. It’s a mechanical question. Habit.

“Yeah. I mean…no. No exactly.” He lets out a breath. “Hey. Did you…? Did you mean what you said this morning?” The ache in his gut twists, asking him why he’s asking that. Does he just want to hurt MORE? But…

“I have no reason to lie to you,” Pidge says, barely looking up from her screens.

He swallows, even as a strange warmth floods through him. “Then…I mean how do you know that? How you felt, I mean. Before this happened. What’s…? What’s that like?”

Now she picks her head up, thoughtful. “I don’t know that I could explain it to you; you don’t have an adequate frame of reference.”

“Humor me.”

She goes quiet for a moment. “My memories aren’t impaired,” she says, slowly. “Of course I remember having feelings. And why I had them. But thinking about them now, I can be objective. I don’t have an emotional reaction to remembering the reactions I had then. I don’t know if that’s helpful.”

“A little, maybe. But anyway, you’re still okay with Allura fixing it?”

“It’s what’s best for Voltron.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“For me, it does,” Pidge says. “That’s also part of it. What matters to me, without emotion as a factor, is what is objectively better for the most people.”

Lance sighs. “You matter too, Pidge. Even Spock figured that one out eventually.”

“Isn’t it true that you would prefer for me to be the way I was?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Pidge is quiet for a moment. She goes back to her computers, and Lance thinks that might be it until she speaks up again.

“Then I want that as well.”

Lance looks back, attention pulled away from his scans again. “What?”

She isn’t looking at him, but she elaborates. “Or perhaps I should say I’m aware that I should. If my past feelings are any indication, I would have wanted that. If I were to accept your premise that my personal opinion on the matter is also important—which I am not saying I have accepted—I would have to concede that I should want this change corrected as well.”

Lance smiles weakly. “Well that’s something, I guess.”

His Pidge is in there. Somewhere.

***

“Hey, man, did you sleep at ALL last night?” Hunk asks.

Lance thinks about lying, but his friend’s hand is at his back, pressing in and warm, and he doesn’t have the heart to do it. “I uh…no. Not even a little.”

He’s afraid he looks it, too. His meticulous routine has gone by the wayside since the accident. He ran a comb through his hair this morning and his uniform is technically clean, but he doesn’t want to guess how large the bags under his eyes might be.

He feels cold and achy with exhaustion. Like reality isn’t real. But maybe, in a little while, everything will make sense again.

They’re all here. Crowded into a room in the infirmary in case anything goes wrong. Allura and Pidge on the edge of the examination bed. Sam at his daughter’s side and Shiro beside his old friend. Coran, Keith, Hunk, Veronica…they’re all here. Allura started a few minutes ago and she warned them it might take a while and…

Waiting is hard.

Hunk rubs Lance’s back as if trying to massage away the exhaustion, maybe just because none of them really have anything to do anyway. Lance is almost afraid he’ll fall asleep on his feet if Hunk keeps it up, but it’s nice. And If it keeps Hunk distracted, well. He’s not gonna take that away from him.

A few more minutes, and Hunk is just clinging to him. Probably as anxious as he is.

Allura opens her eyes. “I…I know what it is.”

She doesn’t look happy about it. Why doesn’t she look happy?

“Allura?” Sam asks.

She swallows. Her fingers have not left Pidge’s temples, and the soft blue glow hasn’t died away, but it dims as she redirects some of her concentration to talk to them.

“It’s…it isn’t a physical problem. Some of it may be manifesting physically in the form of the clouded areas we’ve seen on scans, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is telepathic. Hunk and Keith’s findings were correct…somehow this species was able to infuse telepathy and quite possibly magic into a physical toxin.”

Sam shifts closer to Pidge. “What does that mean…?”

No…

“It means…I don’t have the tools needed to fix this. I-I have magic, but I am not a true telepath. I know enough to nearly understand what is wrong…to find the telepathic barrier that’s been put in place, but…I can’t remove it. Not alone.”

“W-what are you talking about?” Lance says. “You can do this. I know this isn’t Voltron, but you can do it. You…you always can…”

“Lance, it isn’t about power, or believing. I don’t have the right ‘type’ of power.” She looks at Sam, too, and Pidge, who has opened her eyes. “I am so sorry…perhaps if we found a powerful enough telepath…”

Lance doesn’t realize he’s swaying backwards until Hunk’s arm is pressing into his back again, keeping him upright.

“Easy, buddy…” Hunk says quietly. His voice is tight, and Lance doesn’t blame him. His head is spinning.

“Thank you, for trying,” Sam is saying. He sounds sincere, but dull. Pained.

“Wait,” Allura says suddenly. “There is one thing I may be able to do now. If Pidge will allow it.”

“What?” Pidge asks.

“I…Lance may be right. I may not be able to remove the barrier because I am not a telepath, but I do have magic. I do have a certain amount of power, and it counts for something. I may be able to…lift the edge, for lack of a better term. Temporarily negate the effects.” She winces. “Very temporarily. Only for a few moments, most likely. But…”

The room seems to take a collective breath at that.

Pidge shrugs slightly. “I’ll allow that if anyone wants it.”

Of course they do. They all do. But Lance leaves it her father to say so. Allura nods and nudges for Pidge to shift to face out on the edge of the infirmary bed. Allura shifts back, carefully changing the position of her fingers without entirely breaking some kind of contact, so that she’s reaching around Pidge’s head from the back instead of the front.

“It will be easier for the others this way,” Allura says, when Pidge looks at her quizzically.  

They settle, and Allura and Sam are already crying silently before Allura even does anything else. Lance isn’t sure how he’s breathing.

Pidge closes her eyes as the glow from Allura’s hands brightens again. As Allura closes her own to concentrate. But Lance can still see the moment when something changes. When Pidge’s face scrunches in confusion and then a kind of pain.

Her first breath after that is a sob. “Dad…?” Her eyes fly open and she’s reaching out for Sam. “Dad…! Oh god, oh god…!” he pulls her in closer, wrapping her up in his arms as tight as it looks like he can without breaking Allura’s hold on her temples.

“Katie…”

“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault. It’s not, Katie.”

“I-I don’t want to be like that anymore! I’m not ME, I…i-it’s so wrong…” She sniffs into his coat. “I love you, Dad. I love all of you…”

“We know.” Sam stands back from her to let the others close. Shiro, Hunk, even Keith goes in for a quick hug, while they can, while Lance is rooted where he stands trying to breathe.

His face is already wet. Of course it is. By the time Pidge finds him and meets his eyes he’s crying, and he really wishes he could have done better but he can’t. He can’t do it. He’s shaking and he can’t help that, either. Not even when she reaches out first from where she sits, and takes his hand.

“Lance…”

“Pidge,” he gasps.

Her eyes are wide with the fear of how little time they have now. “Kiss me.”

Lance doesn’t have time to question her. Or to think about the fact that Sam and Allura and Shiro and the others are there and looking at them. He ducks forward, cupping her face with his free hands and pressing his lips to hers. Uncertain at first, but she tugs him in closer by the front of his shirt.

He sobs against her cheek when the kiss has ended. “We’re not giving up. I-I’ll never…”

“I know,” Pidge whispers.

Lance all but stumbles backward, giving Sam the space to have another moment before Allura has to stop. Before she can’t do it anymore.

“I love you,” Pidge is saying to Sam again. “Please…please t-tell Mom, and Matt. I…just in case I-I can’t…I…”

“Katie…” Sam leans down to look into her eye, taking her shoulders in his hands. “Katie, listen to me. Love isn’t just a feeling. Remember that. It’s a choice. Even if you can’t have these flighty things we call emotions, you can still choose to care for someone - to…to count their well-being as important, or to protect them or…you see?”

“I-I do right now; I hope I will when—“ She cuts off in a sob. “Dad, I’m scared.”

Sam pulls her in again, and Allura is trembling. Running out of energy. Pidge buries her face in her father’s jacket.

Allura all but collapses when she lets go. Coran is there to catch her. Faintly Lance thinks he should have been there, too, but he feels like he might collapse, himself. Hunk is crying beside him, but it’s still his friend keeping him upright, really.

Pidge is the only one of them who doesn’t look upset, of course. As she sits up and unburies her face. She looks around at them all her eyebrows go up.

“I’m the cause of all this. I should apologize.”

Sam sobs quietly and wraps himself around her again. She doesn’t bother to return the embrace this time, but at least she doesn’t seem to have anything against it. “No…it’s not your fault.”

Lance doesn’t know what to do with himself. Hunk is still crying and Keith looks unsure, too. Shiro is looking at them. All of them. Probably trying to decide who might need him more, because that’s just Shiro, but right now Lance…can’t.

He starts to back away from everyone and Hunk calms enough to ask after him. “Lance? Man?” he asks weakly.

“I-I’m just…gonna…” He turns for the door, and something about the movement hurts. In his head. How long since his head started hurting again? Or did it really ever stop?

He reaches out for the doorframe, suddenly dizzy. He knows his other hand goes to press at his head and he can vaguely hear one or two of the others calling his name, but they’re so far away now…

Then the floor is getting very close very fast, and someone is grabbing at him, but everything goes black before Lance can find out who. 


	6. Chapter 6

_ Now - Two Weeks Later _

 

“This is the area the records indicated?” Shiro asks.

 

The bridge of the Atlas is quiet and anxious. Empty space greets them on the viewscreen, but...there should be something here. There HAS to be something here. Two weeks of shifting through half-decoded chips and records thousands of years old and piecing together vague evidence can’t have been for nothing.

 

“I accounted for drift and expansion in the approximately four to five thousand years since the records were created,” Pidge offers from her station. “Of course, there is a certain margin of error, but if the record were correct we should be able to detect something.”

 

Lance’s fingers tighten on the back of her chair. “Could they have moved again? What if they settled somewhere else?”

 

“What if they’re hiding somehow?” Keith questions. “We’ve encountered more than one way for a space station or a small planet to hide. Pockets of space, spatial anomalies…”

 

“There’s nothing here for them to hide IN,” Coran points out. “It’s empty space.”

 

Hunk crosses his arms. “Man...do you think Zarkon eventually got to them, too?”

 

Lance shakes his head. He knows Pidge is looking up at him, but he can’t meet her eyes right now. “No. They have to be  _ somewhere _ .”

 

They have to be. They might be the only people who can help Pidge.

 

***

 

_ Two Weeks Ago _

 

Lance wakes up in an infirmary bed rather than on the floor. His first dim thought is ‘again?’ The lights are dim, but he doesn’t know if that’s the room he’s in, or if it’s ship’s night. 

 

A quiet snore draws his attention to a chair beside the bed. Hunk is asleep in it, his head and arms sprawled on the bed. Another form is curled up on top of the blankets in the room’s second bed, facing him but also asleep. Veronica.

 

Lance stares at the ceiling, trying to remember what happened. His chest hurts. His head...still kind of hurts. At least he doesn't feel so exhausted anymore. That's a plus. But…

 

Pidge. He tries to breathe as what happened before he passed out rushes back, but it feels like a weight on his chest. It  _ hurts _ .

 

Before much longer Hunk startles himself awake with a snort; Lance is so used to the sound from when they were roommates at the Garrison that it doesn’t phase him. He waits for the garbled words before he looks down.

 

"Whoa..wh..what? Hm...? Lance?"

 

"Hey, man..."

 

"Hey. You uh...you okay?" Hunk is looking at him like he already knows the answer.

 

Lance just makes a face.

 

"Yeah...me either.”

 

"How long was I out?"

 

Hunk looks around for a clock, before finally glancing at his own wrist. "Like...thirteen hours?"

 

“What?” Lance tries to sit up, a hand on his shoulder holds him back. "Geez..."

 

"You needed it, man; you looked like crap. I mean you still kinda look like crap, but like slightly fresher crap?"

 

Lance snorts out a tired laugh. "You and Keith haven't slept much either."

 

"I mean, maybe not, but more than you, that's for sure. And we all know this has been pretty hard on you..." Hunk swallows. “I’m...I’m sorry, Lance.”

 

He scrubs at his eyes as he turns onto his side. “We all hate this.”

 

“You know what I mean. I mean, I kinda knew but...anyway.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Hunk smiles, maybe trying to lighten the mood a little. “So...Pidge, huh?”

 

It doesn’t work. The lump that’s been in Lance has been trying to gulp out of his throat since he woke up decides to fight back. “Yeah,” he says again. But this time it’s a sob.

 

He didn’t cry before. This morning. Whenever it was. There wasn’t time. Now…

 

He hears the scraping of the chair’s legs on the floor, Hunk scooting closer to the head of the bed to lean in and get an arm around him. A forehead bumps his but by now Lance has clenched his eyes shut.

 

“We’ll figure this out,” Hunk is saying. 

 

Lance tries to muffle the noise in his pillow, but after a minute or two there are quiet footsteps. A hand on his head and another at his back as Veronica leans over him, too, and reminds him the rest of them of them aren’t giving up, either. 

 

“How are you feeling?” she asks later, when he’s calmed again.

 

“Better than I did, I guess…”

 

“They said you were just worn out,” Hunk fills in. “They didn’t find anything wrong with you or anything. Just exhaustion and the...shock, I guess.”

 

“It certainly didn’t help,” Veronica mumbles. “Neither did having your brain messed around with.”

 

Lance snorts. “Are you gonna let that go?”

 

“Oh I don’t have anything against Allura; I just continue to bug you about it out of principle, like the good sister I am.”

 

Allura. “How IS Allura?” Lance asks. “Is she okay…?”

 

Hunk nods. “Yeah, she’s fine. She’s been in her quarters resting too.”

 

“Okay...good.” He let outs breath. "How long have you two been here?"

 

"Not long. A couple of hours maybe. Veronica was actually helping Keith and I back in my workshop most of the day. Pidge is in on it too, now.”

 

“In on...what?"

 

Hunk grins. "How to find a telepath."

 

"Yeah? Did you find anything?"

 

"Coran and the coalition don't know of any very powerful telepathic species in the known universe - apparently Zarkon saw strong telepaths as a threat back in the day, and a lot of them were wiped out or something like that, which, you know, sucks, but these artifacts from the planet where that toxin was created are a LOT more recent than that. Maybe more like 4 or 5 thousand years old than ten. And we think we've found some references to a group that broke off before everything went downhill. There might be more of them out there somewhere."

 

At that, Lance tries to sit up again. "The same people who created this thing?" Hunk and Veronica both press him back this time, and he may be much less exhausted now, but that doesn't mean he has the energy to protest.

 

"Hey, stop that. And yeah. Maybe. We're not exactly sure where they went yet, but we think some of the stuff we still need to decode could give us a clue."

 

"And if we can find them, we can help Pidge."

 

Veronica nods. "That's the idea.”

 

Lance relaxes against the pillows. He really does feel much better than he did. Not exhausted just...pleasantly tired. "That's...that's good."

 

"Yeah." Hunk smiles a little. "You should rest some more. It's late anyway.”

 

"I'm fine. I was just tired and...upset. I guess. You said they said so.”

 

Veronica flicks his ear.

 

“Ow!”

"Yeah, we know. But still. Just rest, okay?"

 

Lance raises an eyebrow at them both. "Only if you two promise you'll go back to your rooms and sleep, too. Are Pidge and Keith sleeping? Keith and Pidge should be sleeping."

 

Hunk smirks. "How about this. You rest, and we’ll make sure they’re sleeping. Then we'll sleep."

 

"In your actual beds."

 

"IN our actual beds," Veronica sighs.

 

***

 

_ Now _

 

“Wait,” Allura says. 

“What is it?” Shiro asks.

 

“I...I think I can sense something. It’s like...I  _ know _ there is something here, but I can’t explain how.”

 

“They are telepaths,” Pidge says.

 

Allura blinks. “Yes, but I am not. I wouldn’t be sensing that…”

 

“But you might be sensing a concentration of quintessence,” Keith says. “Of  _ people _ .”

 

Pidge is already studying the readouts on her console more closely when she continues over her shoulder. “My comment was meant to indicate that it might be possible that they are hiding their planet in a purely telepathic manner.”

 

Shiro shakes his head. “We would still be able to pick them up on scanners…”

 

“Correct. But while a telepathic shield would not technically affect the operation of our scanners, that’s of little consequence if we’re not aware that the data is right in front of us - hidden just like the planet itself.”

 

Allura’s eyebrows are high on her forehead. “I suppose it’s possible…” 

 

Lance leans over Pidge and her console; she’s still staring unblinkingly at it, as if just doing that might make it reveal some secret. “Are you trying to see if the readouts don’t...look right?”

 

“Looking for anomalies...errors in a possible telepathic shield, yes.”

 

“If it’s even a thing.”

 

She glances at him briefly, an eyebrow raised. “Yes. If it is, in fact, ‘a thing.’”

 

His stomach is still in knots, but Lance can’t help but chuckle quietly.

 

***

 

_ Two Weeks Ago _

 

This time Lance waits in the infirmary for the doctor to release him properly the next morning. He considers going back to his room first, but he can’t. He isn’t sure who he’s looking for until his feet take him to Pidge’s door.

 

His hand freezes above the call button.

 

No one answers when he finally makes himself press it. He can hear the chime inside, but there is no movement. No response. She isn’t here.

 

He goes to her lab, instead, and finds the light on and spilling into the slightly dim corridor of early ship’s morning. 

 

Lance hesitates again, pulling in a deep breath before he goes in. He hasn’t seen Pidge since what happened yesterday, and while SHE can’t have emotions about it right now, he certainly still can. He braces himself for awkwardness that will admittedly be mostly his fault, he’s sure…

 

But Pidge is asleep, bent over her desk. He sighs and tries to drape an extra jacket from a rack in the corner over her shoulders, but she wakes up as he settles it there. 

 

“Sorry...didn’t mean to wake you up.”

 

She stretches and yawns. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I came to work on translating more of the data from the planet. If you haven’t been informed yet, Shiro has made finding the telepaths the Atlas’s top priority as of yesterday evening.”

 

“Well I mean that makes sense; we have to find them to help you, without you there’s no Voltron, and Voltron is kind of important…” He wonders if he should be saying more. Reminding her he won’t give up, or…

 

But she heard him say that. She has to know he means it. And she...she kissed him. She knows. There’s no need to repeat it to this version of her who would get no benefit from it. 

 

What he needs to do now is be here for her. 

 

“I thought Hunk and Veronica were going to make sure you got some sleep.”

 

Pidge nods. “They did. And I did. I’ve just been awake since early. However, I seem to have miscalculated the amount of sleep I needed.”

 

Lance crosses his arms and shakes his head at her. The corner of his mouth quirks up at memories of so many conversations just like this. Granted, in the past they were usually peppered by much more emotionally impassioned speeches from Pidge about how she didn’t NEED that much sleep, but still…

 

“Your logic failed you, Pidge; you should get a refund.”

 

She blinks at him. “I assume that was meant to be amusing.”

 

It’s kind of nice to know these exchanges can still happen. In a way. If they’re going to have to get used to the fact that it’s going to at least take longer than they thought to find a way to help Pidge...it helps. 

 

“Something like that...look, have you eaten anything?” 

 

“Within what timeframe?”

 

“Today, Pidge! Have you eaten anything this morning?”

 

“Oh. No, I have not. I’m not meeting my dad this morning; we’ll resume that regular activity tomorrow. Yesterday he asked that we not this morning.”

 

Lance has to resist the urge to wince when a pang goes through his chest at that. Sam...he needs to check on Sam, too. 

 

“Do you want to come eat with me, then?”

 

“I would be more alert and more likely to work efficiently after eating.”

 

Maybe he shouldn’t really be laughing right now, but he does anyway. “So that’s a yes?”

 

“Yes...did I say something funny?” Pidge asks. She seems genuinely curious.

 

“Humor is subjective; you should remember that, at least,” he teases. “’I’ thought it was.”

 

She raises an eyebrow as she gets to her feet. “That is not necessarily evidence of anything.”

 

“Excuse me! I thought you said I was intelligent.”

 

“That doesn’t consequently mean you’re correct in your assessment.”

 

Lance rolls his eyes as he follows her from the lab and into the corridor, but he’s smiling. “What part of ‘subjective’ did you not get…?”

 

***

 

_ Now _

 

“I don’t think we’re gonna prove anything by staring at our consoles way too hard,” Hunk says. “Maybe our best bet is just to let them know we, you know, come in peace. If they’re even out there, I mean.”

 

Shiro is already nodding. “You’re probably right. Pidge, open a channel?”

 

She nods at him when the signal is being broadcast. 

 

Shiro squares his shoulders like he does, even though it’s just an audio channel. “To any ships, stations, or planets that may be able to hear me, this is Captain Takashi Shirogane of the Earth vessel Atlas. We come from the new central planet of the Voltron Coalition. We are peaceful. Our mission is to the free the universe from any remaining Galra oppression, but we’re in need of help. One of Voltron’s paladins has been affected by a strange phenomenon, and we’re searching for telepaths who may be able to help.”

 

The bridge seems to hold a collective breath.

 

“We believe you’re out there,” Shiro continues. “If you are, please know you may be the only option we have left. If you choose to reveal yourselves to us, the Coalition can offer you protection. Friendship.”

 

Nothing.

 

Shiro tries once more. “You don’t have to stay isolated in fear any longer. Zarkon is gone, and the universe is taking its’ freedom back. You don’t have to be alone.”

 

The bridge is silent. Lance’s fingers are locked onto the back of Pidge’s seat again.

 

_ Please _ , he thinks.  _ Be there. You have to be there… _

 

His chest constricts. 

 

But then, finally, something more than static. A low female voice breaks through the channel.

 

“Welcome, Atlas.” Before their eyes, space seems to shimmer and a planet is just...there. Where there wasn’t one before. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe it is time for our isolation to come to an end.” 


	7. Chapter 7

_ Now _

 

The planet’s capital city is all organic shapes and bright white, gray, and reflective surfaces. Except for the lack of blue accents, it reminds Lance a bit of the castle of lions. 

 

His chest clenches at that, and he turns to Pidge and Sam for distraction as he brings Red in for a landing with the other lions. 

 

“What do you think, Pidge?”

 

She shrugs. “Olkarion’s architecture is more logical - the angles are more utilitarian and the muted colors avoid standing out from the landscape and interfering with the local ecosystem.”

 

Lance blinks, sharing a pained glance with Sam. He doesn’t mean for Pidge to notice, but it seems she does. 

 

“However,” she adds, “the engineering knowledge required to successfully produce this city’s structures would have to be impressive.”

 

She’s been doing things like that more, recently. Lance wishes he knew knew how much of it was simply learning to imitate the way she’d been before or what made the rest of them more comfortable...and how much might actually mean something.

 

The city is vast, forcing them to land their lions in what must be a park near the center. The grass is purple, but it’s still...basically grass, anyway. 

 

The aliens who greet them are a good head or more taller than any of them, and as they disembark Lance notices the extra spring in his step. Lower gravity?

 

“Their physiology seems to have adapted to this new planet already,” Pidge says. “They’re taller than the records we found seem to indicate their ancestors were. The lower gravity here would account for that.”

 

“You should be proud of me; I was actually getting around to thinking that.”

 

She raises an eyebrow at him, but by now Lance has come to recognize it as the closest thing to what might have been a smirk or a smile before the accident. It sends a welcome warmth through his stomach the same way those always did. 

 

He still isn’t sure whether he should be afraid that their new dynamic—which isn’t, really, all that different from the old one—is becoming normal.  

 

The aliens are tall and thin, with nearly translucent dusty-colored skin that gives them a pinkish-purple look. Instead of hair, fleshy protrusions on their heads vary. There seem to be two main configurations; some, like the one at the front of the group coming to greet them, have half rings hanging around the back of their heads that’s shaped almost like a bob of not quite shoulder length hair. Others have short half rings of tough flesh that stand up on their heads rather than hang down. Maybe those are the differences between male and female here. 

 

The alien leader - the only one with purple in their robes while the others wear whites and grays - sounds like a female. 

 

“Welcome to New Arella. I am Elwan, current elected leader of the Council of Elders.” She makes a rolling motion with her cupped hands before resting one in the other and pushing them outward in what seems to be a greeting.

 

Shiro steps forward and does a decent job of replicating the hand motion as he introduces himself again.

 

Elwan nods. “Captain Shirogane. We are delighted to welcome the Paladins of Voltron and their companions to our planet.”

 

“You’ve heard of us?”

 

“We may keep ourselves safe here, but we are not unaware of what happens outside our shield. With our combined powers our telepathic net casts wide; we hear the murmurings of the universe.”

 

Lance lets himself hope. If they can do that...maybe...

 

***

 

_ Ten Days Ago _

 

It’s comforting seeing how hard everyone is working to decrypt and translate the rest of the files from the planet where Pidge’s accident happened, but for Lance it’s also frustrating. More often than not he finds himself parked at the side of the lab to avoid hovering over anyone’s shoulders or getting underfoot. 

 

Hunk, Pidge, and Sam are decrypting data and running algorithms. Coran and Allura are helping Pidge with translations from the decrypted data. Even Keith is contributing knowledge he has from his time with the Blades that helps, on occasion, with bits of all of it here and there. 

 

All Lance does is ask questions. He’s learning a lot more than he ever knew before about data recovery, alien languages, and the history of this part of the universe, for sure, but that doesn’t really help anyone, does it?

 

“Lance? How are you doing, buddy?”

 

He expects it to be Hunk. Hunk has been asking him that a lot recently. He doesn’t quite register that the voice isn’t Hunk’s until he looks up from the padded bench built into the wall of the lab that he’s parked himself on. 

 

Maybe he’s more tired than he thought he was. They’ve all been in here on and off almost around the clock. 

 

It’s Shiro, leaning into the wall near him. He has to spend much of his time on the bridge during duty hours, but he checks in down here as much as he can.

 

Lance lets out a quiet, humorless laugh. “I don’t know anymore. Even Keith can do more than I can here. I feel like I’m just moral support.”

 

“Hey, that’s not a position to underestimate.”

 

“I know…” That’s what he tells himself he’s supposed to believe, anyway. He rubs at his face. “I just...I thought I was really doing something when I let Allura use my brain and everything, but it didn’t help Pidge. So now I’m just...here.”

 

Shiro lowers himself to the bench beside Lance. “Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean you didn’t do anything. And it wasn’t a failure, anyway. We know more now than we did.”

 

“Yeah…” The floating hand jostles his arm, a finger pointing hard into his shoulder. Well, not really that hard and again, maybe it’s just because he’s tired, but it seems to hurt more than it should. “Ow! You could bruise people with that thing.”

 

A soft chuckle. “Sorry. Look, Lance, I wish I knew the perfect thing to say to make you stop feeling like you do, but those words don’t exist. I can’t do it for you. All I can do is remind you how much you mean to all of us, and…” Shiro looks across the lab and lowers his voice. “To Pidge, even if she can’t express it right now.”

 

Lance swallows. “Thanks…” He’s thankful for the reminder; he always is. But it isn’t the only thing worrying him, and he shifts uneasily in his seat. 

 

Shiro is still looking at him. “Is there something else?”

 

He isn’t going to give up. He told Pidge he never would, and he won’t, but…

 

“What happens if we don’t find anything? What happens if…” Lance shakes his head, as if that might ward off the possibility. “I’m afraid of what happens if we can’t find anyone to help her. What am I supposed to do?”

 

He hasn’t said this to anyone else. It sounds selfish, and he knows it does. But Shiro doesn’t seem to take it that way, and maybe that’s why he said it now. He can’t say this to Sam, and he wants to be positive for Hunk, for Allura, for Pidge herself. But if there’s anyone who would understand…

 

Shiro seems to. His expression softens. “I can’t answer that, either. Not entirely, I guess. But if that’s ever the case I’d say start with just doing what you already do so well. We would need that.”

 

“What’s…’that?’”

 

“You’re here for us, Lance. Even when we forget to notice. And we shouldn’t.”

 

***

 

_ Now _

 

“For nearly the first half of Zarkon’s reign of terror, our home planet was outside of his range of influence. He slaughtered other telepathic races, but he had not yet turned his attention to us. Before he did our ancestors fought enough amongst themselves.”

 

Elwan stands in the center of a great high-ceilinged welcome gallery in the capital’s central building, before a projection of the first planet Arella. The glass of the ceiling allows sunlight to shine on the holographic planet’s surface. 

 

“There were wars between higher-powered telepaths and those whose abilities were different, or considered weaker. There were wars over different viewpoints concerning the proper uses of our telepathy...in essence, in the early centuries after our telepathy developed, our ancestors allowed it to tear them apart rather than bring them together.” 

 

She shakes her head mournfully. “Only banding together to fight the Galra when they finally reached our system temporarily stopped the fighting, and even then...some of them took some things much too far in fear of what might happen once the war was won or lost. From what I understand, one of you has been the victim of the evidence of this.”

 

Pidge is beside him, and Lance brings a hand up against the back of her armor almost out of instinct. She doesn’t seem to mind. 

 

“It seems I have,” Pidge says. 

 

Sam, on her other side, is nodding. “She was accidently exposed to a toxin the paladins encountered on what must have been the ruins of your home planet. She’s lost any...emotional ability, for lack of a better way to put it.”

 

“And the problem is much more a mental one—or telepathic one, rather—than anything else,” Allura says. “I...my Altean alchemy was not able to permanently correct it.”

 

Lance catches Allura’s eyes when they come back up, after she drops them briefly. Just to smile at her. To let her know it’s all right. She did everything she could. He’s tried to remember that himself, since Shiro said something. He doesn’t give up until she smiles back, if weakly.

 

“I am so sorry this has happened,” Elwan says, clasping her hands. The development of the toxin is why our ancestors fled Arella. According to our history there were factions on the planet who thought it the only option to help them win the losing war against the Galra—whether to make them more more efficient, or to make them less appealing a target to the Galra, we are not sure; there are differing accounts. But in any case, they were not convinced that OUR ancestors’ solution—developing the technology to create the telepathic shield we now have around this planet—would work.”

 

“It clearly did,” Pidge says. “Your planet has been protected here for thousands of years.”

 

Hunk hums in fascination. “So the shield IS technology, then? And not just, like, a collective mental effort?”

 

Elwan nods. “It is both. We are able to collect telepathic energy into a central power core that drives the shield. Operators take shifts charging the core and mentally scanning and specifically directing the working shield if there are any ships nearby to...direct their attention away, per se, as an added layer of protection. This is beyond the shield itself simply making the planet and any related readings invisible to the minds of outsiders.”

 

“So while your ancestors used the idea of applying telepathic energy in the physical world for defense,” Keith says, “others on your home planet were trying to use it as a weapon.”

 

“A weapon against our own people. They would have forced it on the entire population. That is why those who opposed it were forced to flee.”

 

“Can you fix it, though?” Lance asks. “Can you help her?”

 

Elwan shifts on her feet in a very human-like gesture of discomfort. “I do not know. To have created something that could be reversed by a telepath would have gone against their very purpose. However, I am not certain how well they succeeded in their synthesis.”

 

Lance blinks. “I don’t understand. If it’s a telepathic problem, like Allura was telling us when she looked at it, why WOULDN’T you be able to fix it, if you’re all as powerful as you are? I mean...all due respect and everything.”

 

She doesn’t seem to take offense. “It is difficult to explain to those without telepathic abilities. But I can assure you that we will try. If she wants it.” She looks to Pidge. “You want this, child?”

 

“Yes.”

 

This time the answer isn’t hedging, or laced with more logic than real decision, and Lance wonders when that happened.

 

***

 

_ Nine Days Ago _

 

Lance wakes up on the bench in the lab halfway through the night. Most of the others have gone, but they seem to have decided to let him rest. 

 

He only wakes, blearily, at the sensation of weight dropping over him. Warmth. A blanket from somewhere. Fingers brush against his shoulders while pulling up the edges and he opens his eyes to catch the green and white back of Pidge’s jacket as she turns away, the colors muted in the dim lab lit mostly now by the glow of computer screens. She seems to be the only one here.

 

“Pidge?” he mumbles. He doesn’t really think through saying something, but in his defense he isn’t really awake. 

 

She turns back, raising an eyebrow. “You would sleep more deeply if you returned your quarters and your own bed, but if you insist on remaining here, having some sort of covering will help. It’s been proven by research.”

 

Lance steals a glance at the time on the nearest computer. “Are you science-ing at me at 2 am?” he grumbles in a whisper.

 

“Science is valid at any time of day. Or night, as the case may be.”

 

“You should be asleep…”

 

“As should you.”

 

“I’m locking you out of this lab when this is over.” If it’s ever over. He resists the urge to wince.

 

Pidge shrugs and goes back to her work. “I could easily break any encryption you might manage to affect on the door.”

 

“Then I’ll get Hunk to help.”

 

That actually makes her pause, and Lance can’t help grinning at her back as he drifts off again. 

 

He wakes once more two or three hours later, in the early hours of the morning. The lab is dark and quiet, and there’s more warmth near his feet than there was before. Lance pushes up on his arms to find Pidge asleep with her head at the other end of the long bench, the ends of her legs overlapping his. The blanket she brought earlier is long enough it’s covering both of them.

 

Lance sighs quietly. “At least you didn’t work all night.”

 

He ventures out to the nearest restroom, but rather than going back to his quarters he returns to the lab and perches on the edge of the bench at Pidge’s side, debating whether to carry her to her own bed. 

 

He brushes a clump of stray hair from her face, wondering if she’ll wake up like the last time caught her asleep in here. But she doesn’t stir, so he pushes a few more strands behind her ear to clear the last of the hair from her eyes. There are no glasses in the way, because she hasn’t worn them since the incident. 

 

_ I don’t actually need them, and there’s no need for a disguise anymore _ , she said.

 

But at least now, while she’s sleeping like this, it isn’t so strange that they’re gone. It’s almost as if nothing is wrong. She could open her eyes any moment and smile at him. Nothing is different. 

 

HE isn’t different, Lance realizes. 

 

He wants nothing more than for Pidge to smile the way she used to. He wants to hear her laugh, but even if she never does again, he will still feel this way. He will still want her safe. This thing in his chest that draws him to her—that has for so long—is not just going to vanish. 

 

In the end, he doesn’t move her. After adjusting the blanket around Pidge’s shoulders he curls up on his end of the padded bench again to rest, so she won’t wake up alone. 

 

***

 

_ Now _

 

“We will need several vargas to prepare,” Elwan tells them. “If that is all right.”

 

Shiro nods. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

 

“The Council will take this on ourselves. Many of us are this planet’s most skilled telepaths. If there is a way to help her, we will find it.”

 

“Thank you,” Sam says. His voice is wavering. “This means so much to us.”

 

The alien smiles at Sam softly, as if she can sense just how much. Lance doesn’t think the Arel would be in anyone’s heads without asking, but he wonders if certain things are hard to mask. Like strong emotions. 

 

_ Do mine stick out, too?  _

 

_ They do, young one.  _ The voice is Elwan’s, answering tentatively at the edge of his edge of his mind.  _ But no, we do not enter anyone’s mind without an invitation. If that was not one, I apologize. _

 

Lance blinks rapidly.  _ I...it pretty much was. It’s okay. I just… _

 

_ You care for this girl a great deal.  _

 

_ I do… _

 

_ I hope we can help her. _

 

Aloud, Elwan is approaching Allura. “You are the one who has looked into her mind. May we see into yours to learn what you have learned? So that we may be better prepared?”

 

Allura is already nodding quickly. “Yes, please. If I can help in any way…”

 

“Then please, come with us to the council chamber?”

 

***

 

_ One Week Ago _

 

Pidge and her father take up having breakfast together again every morning after the one day they didn’t, but they invite Lance to join them. It becomes what they do before they all go back to the lab to work. 

 

Until the day Lance asks Pidge to go ahead, leaving him in a quiet corridor with Sam.

 

“We’ll catch up.”

 

She raises that eyebrow at him. “All right.” 

 

Lance can’t help giving her a lopsided smile as she goes, his stomach is flip-flopping for more reasons than one. He can’t even decide whether it’s more pleasant than it is painful. 

 

Sam is quiet until she’s out of sight, only shifting closer and looking concerned once she’s gone. “Lance?”

 

“I just...I um…” He had it all in his head, right there, but now none of it will come out. 

 

He hesitates, and after a moment Sam fills the silence. 

 

“I haven’t had a chance to say thank you for keeping Katie company a few days ago after...well. Thank you. I just needed...some time.”

 

“I get it...I’ve had a lot to think about too. Actually I kind of...that’s what I...I’ve thought a lot about what you said, that day. In the infirmary. I know you were talking to Pidge, but, anyway…”

 

“What I said about what?” Sam winces. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t quite remember it all?”

 

Lance nods quickly. “Yeah, it’s fine, you—about how love is a choice. That.”

 

Two gray eyebrows climb. “Oh. Lance...”

 

“I just want you to know I’m not going anywhere. Whatever happens. I-I mean as long as that’s okay. Sir.” He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it, since that night in the lab.

 

Sam lets out a breath and answers slowly. “I know you’ll always be her friend; I’m sure all of you will. I’ve never doubted that.”

 

“That’s not exactly what I mean.”

 

“I know you care about her, Lance, and I’m glad for that—truly I am, as I’ve said before—but I would never ask you to—”

 

“What if I wanted to?”

 

A wince. “Lance…”

 

“And-and I don’t know even know if I could. Yet. I hope I could. And even if I could I don’t know if Pidge would want it, but if she did? Someday. In-in her own way. Maybe I’m getting way too far ahead of myself…”

 

A gentle hand on his shoulder. “I really think you are, son.” A sigh. “Though I can’t say I haven’t had those thoughts. I’ve always wanted the best for my children—whatever they wanted, whether it was successful careers or happy families...I wanted her to find the right person someday, if she wanted someone. But...if she stays the way she is now, I’m afraid that part won’t matter much to her anymore and...I can be all right with that.”

 

Lance swallows. “I know it won’t be the same...I just...I want to be able to be there for her however she needs...or wants...or…something.”

 

“Are you looking for my permission?”

 

“Maybe? Or support?” His shoulders slump. “I don’t know.”

 

“You have it. Of course,” Sam says, and Lance’s eyes widen. “But I hope you’re not planning to make any decisions too quickly. You’re both still so young.”

 

“No...I mean, I’m not planning on it but…” He lets out a confused breath. “I just know I want her to be happy? Or as close to that as she can be if...am I making any sense?”

 

It isn’t until he asks the question that Lance remembers saying something similar to Sam before, in the entryway of the Holts’ house before they left Earth. Pidge’s father is just as understanding now as he was then.

 

“You’re making perfect sense to me.”

 

When they make it to the lab, Hunk and Allura are practically bouncing.

 

“Hey, Lance! Commander Holt, Sir! That algorithm we left running on that new segment that night? I think we’ve got some coordinates!

 

***

 

_ Now _

 

While Elwen and the council members are gone, other Arellans keep the team company. They’re served food, and are able to get to know some of the other locals. They’re a friendly, open people. 

 

It is still weird that they’re all so tall. Lance is starting to understand how the Arusians felt around  _ them _ . But he knows where his uneasiness really stems from. He can see it in all of them. He knows his friends. 

 

This is really it. The last chance. If this doesn’t work...

 

There shouldn’t be a way for that uncertain finality to get to Pidge, but at some point, she slips away. Lance finds her in the courtyard of the building, standing i the midst of the purple and pink leaves of this planet’s foliage. The gray stone walkway under their feet is polished to shining, reflecting the swaying leaving as they fall in the afternoon breeze.

 

“It’s uh...it’s nice out here.”

 

There goes the eyebrow. How does even that make heat rise in his cheeks now? 

 

“The temperature and breeze are objectively ideal, yes.”

 

He has to do it. He has to. 

 

“Pidge…” His heart pounds as he closes the distance between them and reaches for her hand. “Can I talk to you?”

 

“I...do not know if that’s wise right now.” But though she looks at the hand that clasps hers, almost warily, she doesn’t pull away. 

 

“I think it is,” Lance says. He swallows. “I was going to wait...I wanted to wait until you were back to normal, b-but I think...I think you deserve to know before we know what happens here. If it works, I don’t want you to think it had anything to do with whether or not it did.”

 

He squeezes Pidge’s hand, anxious but also more sure of what he’s about to say than of anything else in a long, long time.

 

“I mean you kind of already know but I need to say it before we go in there. I need you to know I...I love you. I love you, Pidge.”

 

It comes out breathless in the end, and Lance feels almost ridiculous, because he’s never confessed to anyone quite like that, but he also doesn’t care. 

 

“I know that doesn’t mean much to you right now, but it’s not going to change. Whatever happens in there...I’ll be here.”


	8. Chapter 8

Lance knew not to expect an emotional response, but it still makes him uneasy when Pidge only stares at their clasped hands.  

 

“You mean that...in a romantic sense,” she says. It isn’t a question; she knows he does. 

 

“If you want it to mean that. And-and I know that if it—” Lance cuts off and swallows hard. “If it doesn’t work, I know you won’t be able to feel the way I do, but we can still—I don’t know—we can still make something work. If you want that.”

 

She peers up at him curiously. There’s still something in her eyes that seems practically wary of him now. “Why would  _ you _ ?”

 

“Because I...I don’t just love who you were, Pidge. Or who you could be. I love YOU.”

 

Pidge looks him in the eyes, and he feels as if she can see right through him. “You’ve made that choice,” she says. 

 

So he wasn’t the only one listening to her father. “...yeah. I guess so.”

 

She nods in thought, looking away for a long moment before she answers. “If the Arellans are able to remove the block preventing my emotions, I’m relatively certain the person I will be will be happy to accept your offer of a romantic relationship.”

 

Lance chuckles. “I guess that’s one way to say yes.”

 

His smile fades when Pidge tugs her hand free of his. 

 

“However, if I remain as I am my answer can’t be the same.” 

 

“What? But...why? I-I know you won’t want the same things and that’s...that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be like it would be if you go back to how you were. I want to be whatever you need, I—”

 

“I won’t need you. Not the way I am now.”

 

For a moment it’s hard to take a breath. Lance blinks, and his vision blurs with dampness. “You didn’t have to put it that way.”

 

He tries to remember not to be angry with her—that she doesn’t mean it to be cruel—but that’s hard to do when his chest suddenly aches and he feels like he must have slipped on a proverbial banana peel.

 

“While there could be mutual benefits to the sort of exclusive relationship you’re offering, even in my current state, they would not outweigh the negative effects maintaining such a relationship with someone with my condition would be likely to have on someone with your personality.”

 

“Your...my...wait, this is about ME?” Pidge raises that eyebrow at him, but this time the heat rising in Lance’s cheeks has nothing to do with fondness. “What are you saying!”

 

“I don’t mean to insult; I merely mean that you’re a sensitive individual. You require affectionate relationships, which I can’t provide in my current condition.”

 

“You...but you do. Sometimes. You...you still don’t mind touch, at least, and...things like in the lab...with the blanket…”

 

“I can imitate behaviors, or do things I remember doing before. That isn’t the same as having the emotions most people would associate with them.”

 

Lance winces. “I know that…”

 

She studies him for a moment. “You may. I don’t believe you’ve completely deceived yourself.”

 

He snorts, pained. “Thanks.”

 

“Even though that may be the case, I don’t believe you’ve considered that even though you mean well, tying yourself to me as I am now in any way would ultimately make you unhappy.”

 

“You can’t know that! Can’t I make my own decisions?”

 

She nods once. “You can. However, so can I.” 

 

Lance tries to close his eyes to keep the courtyard from spinning, but that only makes it worse. A small hand braces his shoulder. 

 

“You will still be a welcome companion,” she tells him. “In any platonic, non-exclusive sense.”

 

She’s trying to protect him. No matter what she says or how, he knows that’s what she’s doing. But he’s never going to be able to out-logic her enough to get her to admit it.

 

Maybe he should have expected this. 

 

“Yeah…” he sighs. His throat is tight. “I know.”

 

Pidge surprises him when she moves in without any prompting to hug him.  _ I can imitate behaviors, _ she said. Lance clings back anyway, because he needs the contact. 

 

That can’t be all it is. It can’t.

 

“I know the old you is in there somewhere, Pidge. I see it sometimes,” he murmurs into her hair. “Whether you think that’s what it is or not.”

 

She lets him hold onto her for a little while longer before she gently pulls back. She doesn’t try to contradict him again. 

 

“But anyway I uhm...if you want me to, I’ll be here either way, Pidge,” Lance says quietly. “Even if all you want is a friend.”

 

“For your sake, and the others as well, I do hope the Arellans’ attempt is successful.”

 

Lance manages to quirk one side of his mouth up at that. “I know you can’t really mean the hope part, but thanks for saying it that way.”

 

“I apologize if I was excessively blunt a few moments ago.”

 

“I know it’s not personal...”

 

“Precisely.”

 

They both fall silent, until Pidge suggests that perhaps they should return inside.

 

“You can go; I’m gonna stay out here for a while.”

 

She nods, seeming to understand that he needs to be left alone. He looks for somewhere to sit when her footsteps fade behind him on the stone walkway, but there isn’t one immediately in sight. His fingers dig into the hard arm plates near his elbows.

 

He doesn’t want to start crying just standing here, in the middle of the path. That would be...dumb.

 

And it’s...it has to work.  _ Please… _

 

Lance isn’t sure how long he’s been standing there in the shade when new footsteps approach behind him. Heavier. Familiar. 

 

“Lance?” Hunk asks. A hand at his back. “What happened? I saw Pidge come back in earlier…”

 

He shakes his head, maybe too quickly because Hunk still gives him that ‘not buying it’ look.

 

It isn’t that he doesn’t want Hunk to know; it’s that Lance doesn’t have the emotional energy to tell him. 

 

After a moment Hunk seems to get it. The hand at Lance’s back presses in, urging him to start moving and turn around. 

 

“Okay...come on, buddy, you want to go back inside?”

 

Lance only nods, letting Hunk maneuver him back into the capitol building. Shiro is with Sam in one of the lounge areas around the edge of the large space, Keith not far off speaking with one of the Arellans. What’s left of the food that was brought a varga or so ago sits untouched on a table in the center of the room. 

 

He doesn’t see Pidge anywhere. 

 

“Where IS Pidge?” he asks, when he’s able to clear his throat.

 

Hunk shrugs. “It’s going to be another couple of vargas, and one of the Arellans offered to show her and Coran the shield generator plant. It’s just right behind this main building, apparently.”

 

“Why didn’t you go? Sounds like something you’d be interested in.”

 

“Oh it is! I just...wouldn’t be able to really enjoy it right now. I can see it later, you know, if…”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Hunk shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah. That and...I guess she figured this waiting around might be easier on the rest of us if she...wasn’t here. I guess.”

 

Lance lets out a breath, but he isn’t surprised. “She didn’t have to do that.”

 

“No, but, I mean, she wasn’t exactly wrong.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

Still, he can’t help but wonder if she ran off because of him. 

 

“Allura’s back, though,” Hunk says, just as he sees her. 

 

She’s on the other side of the room, alone as if she wanted to be. Only now does Lance realize that Keith seems distracted, throwing concerned glances her way. Maybe he isn’t sure if he should go to her, or maybe he can’t get away from the Arellan he’s talking to. That never would have stopped old Keith, but the fact that he can be more diplomatic now if he really wants to be isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

 

Lance catches Keith’s eyes and motions that he’ll go; Keith seems to relax at that, thankful.

 

“Thanks, Hunk, I’m gonna…”

 

“Yeah. You go on.”

 

Allura has squirreled herself away in the corner of a soft L-shaped sofa-like thing. It’s bigger than most human furniture, as tall as the Arellans are, and it almost seems to swallow her. Lance has to push himself back after he sits down to get to her. At least he doesn’t sink too much in the cushions. 

 

“Allura? How’d it go? Are you okay?”

 

She only glances at him briefly, looking away again as if there is something she doesn’t want to tell him. “Giving them the knowledge I had went well, but they cannot be certain what the outcome will be when they make the attempt.”

 

“Oh...” He pauses. “Allura, what is it?”

 

She rests her chin on her knees; the vulnerable, protective posture isn’t one he’s used to seeing from Allura.  

 

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to alarm you, it’s that…” She sighs. “I learned much myself, joining with their minds. For one, I know now that in my lack of skill I likely hurt you more than was necessary. When you were lending me your mind before.” 

 

“It’s not your fault; you did the best you could.”

 

“Still. I am sorry.”

 

He shifts closer, letting his arm brush against her side to let her decide if she wants any more contact than that. “Don’t be, okay?”

 

Allura lets some of her weight shift into him. “The more I learn—particularly about alchemy and my abilities, among other things—the more I realize I do not know.”

 

“Well...if you ever need any advice dealing with that particular feeling, I’ve probably got you covered.”

 

She rests her forehead against his shoulder for a moment and laughs once. It isn’t an unpleasant sound. “Thank you, Lance.”

 

After a few more moments she sits up, letting her legs straighten out on the deep Arellan sofa. When they drape off the edge, they don’t touch the floor. 

 

Then she grows until they do.

 

Lance looks—now up—at her with a snort. “Showoff.”

 

But he’s smiling, and a moment ago he didn’t think he would be able to do that again until…

 

Anyway. It’s something.

 

***

 

The round Arellan council chamber is smaller and more compact than Lance expected. Intimate, with just enough room around the edges for the small group of invited offworlders. Then again, for people who can literally see into each others’ minds, maybe it isn’t so strange. 

 

The circle of tables and seats is open in the center. Elwan stands beside a seat there in the middle, beckoning for Pidge. She had only just returned from the shield generator plant with her Arellan escort when a messenger came to bring all of them to the council chamber.

 

“Please, young one, if you can sit here, we will do everything we can.”

 

Strangely enough, she seems to hesitate. Her father squeezes her shoulder, and she glances back at the rest of them before she goes. When her eyes meet his, Lance takes a breath, and he isn’t really sure why.

 

If this were before, he would be able to read more in her gaze. Now...he isn’t sure. But he tries to smile to encourage her anyway. Even if theoretically she doesn’t need it.

 

Also, maybe, to calm his own nerves. His hands are clenched already at his sides. 

 

Allura nudges his shoulder as Pidge takes her seat in the center of the circle of Arellans, and Hunk is close at his other side, Keith beyond him. He exchanges an anxious glance with Sam, who is flanked by Shiro and Coran. All seven of them are clumped tightly, even if they didn’t really plan it. 

 

The Arellan council stands when Pidge is settled. They don’t join hands or anything like that—they don’t seem to need to—but Elwan does place her hands on Pidge’s head as they all close their eyes and appear to concentrate. 

 

Lance closes his own eyes. 

 

_ Please… _

 

***

 

_ Three Days Ago _

 

“When did that happen?”

 

Pidge glances up from her perch atop Green’s metal paw, her brow pinched in confusion for a moment before she seems to realize Lance is looking up at the lion above her. 

 

“Ah. Shortly after Allura’s attempt to reverse the effects of the toxin. The temporarily lifting of the block allowed me to re-establish a tentative connection to Green. She has still not allowed me inside, but she began to drop her shield for me.”

 

“That’s great! Why didn’t you say anything?”

 

She shrugs once. “It didn’t seem productive to inform anyone until we had made more progress and I could be sure it was relevant.”

 

Lance pulls himself up to sit beside her on the massive paw. “So has there? Been any progress, I mean.”

 

Pidge looks up thoughtfully. “Not as such, but I still believe it’s possible. I know she understands, now, that I’m the same person. It’s only that it’s more difficult to maintain a bond without the emotions usually associated; it isn’t that she doesn’t WANT to communicate with me.”

 

“I guess that’s good. So what are you doing in here?”

 

Pidge make a motion with the tablet in her hands. “Taking the opportunity to catch up on technical manuals. We were away from Earth for quite a while.”

 

Lance laughs. “Why am I not surprised? I mean why are you doing it in here?”

 

“My theory is that if I spend more time near Green, it might make it easier to continue to regrow our bond—in the event that we are forced to attempt to do it this way, if my emotions can’t be restored.”

 

He pushes through the usual pang in his chest at that suggestion. “We...they will.”

 

“Green seems hopeful of that as well. I can’t sense much at the moment, but that is clear. It is as if she is...waiting for me.”

 

Lance swallows.  _ I know the feeling. _

 

***

 

_ Now _

 

Lance opens his eyes when Hunk grabs his arms and squeezes. But it isn’t the good kind of squeeze. It’s the latching-on-because-he-needs-something-to-hold-on-to kind. 

 

Elwan has let go of Pidge, and the council members are opening their own eyes. 

 

His breath catches. “Why did they stop?” he whispers.

 

Hunk stammers beside him. “I-I don’t know…”

 

For a moment Elwan is looking only at Pidge. As if they’re having a silent conversation. Pidge is nodding as she gets to her feet.

 

“Katie?” Sam asks. 

 

But when she looks at them...nothing has changed.

 

“What happened?” Shiro asks. None of the rest of them seem to be able to get anything out.

 

Why is Elwan looking at them like that? No no no no…

 

“I am so very sorry,” the Arellan says quietly. “It seems our ancestors succeeded in their goals. The block is too strong to be safely removed.”

 

“Safely?” Sam echoes. His voice is tight.

 

“Combined, we could remove it, but the amount of telepathic energy required to remove the  block completely would prove fatal, even to one of us.” 

 

Lance is shaking his head. The “That’s...a thing? What does that mean? Why can’t—why!”  

 

The rest of him is shaking, too. Hunk is really clinging to him now, practically wrapped around him, but at least it’s keeping both of them on their feet.

 

Elwan slowly releases a breath. “An overload of telepathic energy is a very real danger to any being—just as too much quintessence can be dangerous. That is why our shield facility is heavily shielded itself with dampening technology. Unfortunately, there are records of several incidents while the technology was being developed.”

 

“People died,” Shiro infers.

 

“Yes. According to the reports their minds...shut down, leading to the shutdown of their bodies as well. Within vargas. And we can only assume that for a non-telepathic species the time until death after exposure that severe would be even less.”

 

Allura is leaning into Lance’s other shoulder, and he can’t blame her for wanting the contact. “Is there nothing else?” she asks. 

 

“I am sorry,” Elwan says again. “We were concerned when we saw in your mind how much of your alchemic power it took just to negate the effects temporarily—how dangerous even that was for both of you. I wish those concerns had not turned out to be as founded as it seems they were.”

 

Lance sobs once. His chest aches sharply, but no more will come out. 

 

Pidge goes to her father and Sam pulls her into his arms. The chamber is so quiet it’s a shock when the door bursts open, a male Arellan hurrying in.

 

“Madame Chair!” He pauses at the scene he rushes in on. He seems temporarily apologetic, but still he hurries to Elwan’s side to speak to her, quiet but urgent. 

 

When she turns to the rest of them, she seems just as alarmed. “You must go. You must return to your ship; it is no longer safe for you here.”

 

Shiro steps forward. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

 

“An error in the shield facility control computer. The generator is experiencing a critical buildup of energy. If we cannot stop it, the release could prove fatal to half the continent. Perhaps more. Please! Get yourselves to safety.”

 

Beside Lance, Hunk seems to be trying to gather his wits. “What? Y-you should let us help!”

 

Sam is still holding onto his daughter, but he nods quickly. “Take us there.”

 

She is already bolting from the room after the messenger. “We will not be responsible for the deaths of the Paladins of Voltron; you are too important to this universe,” she calls over her shoulder. “You must go!”

 

None of them listen. Of course they don’t. Running away isn’t what they do. They follow the Arellan council from the chamber.

 

“Are you going to try to evacuate the city in case the overload can’t be stopped?” Shiro is asking the other members.

 

“Yes. There are procedures in place,” one of them says. “The bullet trains and shuttles are fast enough to get some people to safety in time.”

 

“Not everyone?” Keith asks.

 

“It depends on how much time we have. We can’t be certain.” 

 

Everyone quiets briefly at a piercing sound from outside. A long wailing that grows and dies down in cycles. 

 

“The alarms,” one of the Arellans explains.

 

“Lance, Allura,” Keith says quickly. “We can shuttle more people to safety. Sam, Pidge, Hunk—get to the shield facility. Do anything you can.” He looks to the Arellans. “How far should we go?”

 

“At least the other side of this continent. The trains and shuttles for evacuation go as far as the coast.”

 

“Coran and I will gather people into groups in the park,” Shiro says. 

 

Lance moves to follow Keith and Allura as they break off for the lions, but he catches Pidge’s hand on the way. 

 

“Pidge…”

 

He doesn’t know what to say. What he COULD say. And there’s no time even if he knew. 

 

She returns his gaze, if only for a moment, and squeezes his hand before extracting hers. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she says. 

 

Pidge disappears around the corner with Sam and Hunk and several of the Arellans. Lance swipes at an escaped tear, gulping the rest back as he pivots to race after Keith and Allura. 

 

_ Me too.  _

 

***

 

Let Shiro wave as many people into the cargo hold as possible. Hit the gas to the other side of the continent and open the cargo bay door to let them pile out. Back to the capitol city. Repeat. 

 

Three times. Four.

 

Pidge and Hunk’s armor comms keep them updated on the situation at the shield facility.

 

Lance knows it’s bad when Hunk actually swears. 

 

“Quiznak! We caused this...you have more than one unit; I’m guessing you rotate them for maintenance so the shield is always active. It always HAS to be active.”

 

An Arellan voice, not Elwan but also female. “Yes. It’s been thousands of years since the shield was entirely turned off.”

 

“That’s what caused the error in the computer. It just...wasn’t ready for that. The shield’s creators coded for it, but it malfunctioned and allowed the buildup to happen. This is our fault. You shut it down to let us in.”

 

“Nonsense,” Elwan says. “Even if shutting down the shield had something to do with it, the fault is not yours. Please; you and others should evacuate while you still can.”

 

“Yeah we don’t have time to argue. How much longer do we have?”

 

“Approximately fifteen dobashes,” the other Arellan voice answers.

 

“We have tried everything,” a male Arellan voice cuts in. “There is no other way to attempt to shut it down from here, and the main mechanics bay is already flooded.”

 

“With what?” Pidge asks. “Telepathic energy?”

 

“Yes. Far too much.”

 

“From these schematics, it appears that is where the manual override is?”

 

The radio channel goes silent for a long moment, as Lance and Red take off from the drop point across the continent once more.

 

“Yes,” the other female Arellan answers. 

 

Sam Holt is muttering in the background. “Wait, what about—? Oh. No, that wouldn’t do it either…Katie, Hunk, you should go, you—Katie?”

 

Hunk cuts in. “Pidge, what are you…?”

 

“Katie!”

 

A slamming sound. Something sparking. The Arellans’ voices echoing Hunk and Sam’s pleas.

 

“Pidge! The door won’t—Pidge, you can’t go in there!”

 

“Katie, stop! Katie!  

 

Lance shouts into the comms. “What’s going on! Hunk!”

 

“What happened!” Keith calls.

 

“Pidge locked us in the control room and she’s trying to get into the mechanics bay!” Hunk answers.

 

Lance lands in the capital city park once more, this time jumping up from his seat. Shiro meets him on the ground.

 

“Lance, what are you—?”

 

“I’m going in after them! When Keith comes back you and Coran should get on board and get another load of passengers out of here; we’re running out of time.”

 

“No, I’ll go. You should get out of here.”

 

“Are you crazy? The Atlas needs you.”

 

Shiro opens his mouth to protest again, but Keith cuts in over the comms as the black lion sets down beside Red. “Shiro...he’s right.” He doesn’t sound happy about it. 

 

Lance doesn’t wait for Shiro to agree. He takes the chance to bolt for the shield plant. His bayard’s imaging system leads him to Hunk and Pidge, guiding him to the right building entrance and through the mostly evacuated building to the control area where Hunk, and Sam, Elwan, and two other Arellans are trapped. 

 

The area the shape that is Pidge is getting farther and farther away from as the others’ shouts for her echo in his ears. 

 

“Katie, get out of there!”

 

“Pidge! Pidge!”

 

The larger control area is all but empty when Lance finds it. Two other Arellans—the only ones left in the building he’s seen—are already working at the door to the central control room with a cutting laser. Inside, he can see through the wide windows, are Hunk and Sam and the others. 

 

“Will you be able to get them out in time?” he asks. “My lion is here.” One of them nods quickly, not looking up. 

 

“Keith?” Lance calls. “Please tell me Shiro and Coran actually left with you.”

 

“We’re clear,” Keith answers tightly. “Just get them out of there.”

 

Allura’s voice next. “I’ve just left with another load as well. We will be clear in two doboshes. How many people are left in the city and surrounding area?”

 

Elwan answers quietly over the comms from inside the control room. “Tens of thousands, still.”

 

“There is no need for alarm. I’ve located the manual override. I will reach it within four doboshes, and should be able to execute the shutdown sequence within one, with four doboshes to spare before the overload is critical.” Pidge’s voice, finally.

 

“And what if something goes wrong!” Hunk shoots back. 

 

“I’ve calculated you will be free of the control room within five doboshes; if it does appear I will have time to complete the sequence, you will have time to escape to the Red Lion, take off, and stay just ahead of the escaping wave of energy release.”

 

“What about you, Pidge!” Lance calls. 

 

No answer.

 

“Where is she?” he asks. 

 

Through the windows, the Arellans point across the large area to what looks like an airlock. Three layers of doors and security measures lead into the mechanics bay—the inner workings of the shield.

 

“Can I go in there?” he asks. “Even for a minute or two?”

 

Hunk answers him. “Uh...from what they’ve told me, briefly? If you kept your helmet on?”

 

“Does Pidge have her helmet?”

 

“Yeah, but we’re pretty sure she locked those doors down too.”

 

Lance hurries to the control panel, and Elwan talks him through trying to access the door control, but they’re right; all it does is deep loud negative sounds at him.

 

“Pidge!” He pounds on the glass of the outer door. Through the layers he can see a distant figure in the bay; the unmistakable outline of paladin armor. 

 

A barely audible voice over the comms. The male Arellan. “She has been inside nearly too long; the level of leakage in the bay…”

 

“Katie! You don’t have to do this!” Sam.

 

Lance sobs, pounding helplessly on the door. “Pidge, please! Get out of there! There’s still time! Pidge!”

 

In the distance, she disappears, turning into the innards of the bay. This time, when she answers, her voice is labored.

 

“I can...see the override. I am nearly there.”

 

Maybe she can do it and it’ll be all right. Maybe she can shut it down and she’ll be okay. She has to be okay.

 

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Sam asks.

 

“I am...experiencing some pain.”

 

No. No no no, she has to get out there. They have to get of here.

 

“Pidge, come back!” Lance pleads. “Just turn around. Run! Please! Please come back...” His heart is pounding in what feels like his throat, his knees feel weak...his arms are shaking as he beats helplessly on the glass. 

 

“Pidge, come on!” Hunk pleads again.

 

But rather than answering, she shouts. 

 

“Katie!”

 

“Pidge!”

 

Other voices, chiming in over the comms. Keith. Allura. Shiro. Lance shouts, but his voice catches and his throat clogs. A clattering sound as Pidge cries out, as if she collapsed. 

 

“Pidge!” Lance chokes out. 

 

“Katie! What’s happening!” Sam cries.

 

When she answers, it’s like the world tips sideways. 

 

_...the amount of telepathic energy required to remove the block completely would prove fatal... _

 

“Dad? Lance?” Pidge gasps.

 

She sounds like herself.

 

And she sounds afraid. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am...so sorry? I swear this thing is still eventually going to end well...but if you thought I was going to turn Pidge into basically a Spock/Data like character and NOT shamelessly rip off Wrath of Khan...?
> 
> ...you were mistaken...


	9. Chapter 9

“Dad? Lance?” Pidge gasps.

A sharp intake of breath from Sam, and the others have fallen silent.

Lance is the first to croak out an answer. “Pidge…?”

“Lance? I...what am I…?”

“Pidge, come back! Come on, get up, get out of there!”

There isn’t time for the rest now. Maybe if she gets out now and they can get out of here Allura can still help her. Maybe she can heal whatever damage the energy has done. Maybe…

“I...I can’t. The override. I-I have to…” It sounds like she’s getting to her feet. Her breath is still labored. Pained. She still sounds scared, but that determined edge is seeping into her voice. The one he’s missed so much.

“N-no! If you—maybe Allura can—”

“It’s already too late, Lance!” It comes out wavering. Afraid and frustrated even as the sound of heavy footfalls tell them she’s pushing forward.

“Katie…” Sam trails.

Lance sobs quietly, the only other sound on the comm loop for a long moment.

Shiro’s voice is the first one to break the relative silence after that. “Pidge...”

“I’m there,” she says, forcefully. As if trying to tell them that is all she can focus on now because if she thinks about anything else, she might break.

Lance doesn’t blame her. He leans into the glass door and closes his eyes, focusing on the cool smoothness of the inside if his helmet pressing into his forehead.

“3, 4, 2, 5, 1...that’s the sequence, right? That’s—I think that’s what I memorized from your computer,” Pidge says.

The male Arellan in the control room clears his throat. “Yes...that’s correct.”

“Okay…thanks…okay...”

Clicking and grunting. Pidge throwing the override switches in the right order. After the fifth sound the lights flicker and a droning Lance wasn’t even aware of just...stops. Dies away. And everything is even more painfully quiet than before.

“Did...did that do it?” Pidge asks.

“Readings are beginning to normalize,” Elwan says. As she’s speaking, the Arellans cutting through the door to the control room deactivate their tools, one of them pulling away the cut chunk of the door. Sam is the first through the opening.

At almost the same moment there’s a strange beeping from the airlock-like entrance to the mechanics bay.

Lance takes a step back from it. “What...what was that?”

“My lockout on the entrance expiring, probably,” Pidge says.

If they’re not locked out of the bay anymore, he can go in after her. Get her back. They said it was safe for a couple of minutes, right? Lance lunges for the control panel, but the Arellans crowd around him, snatching him back.

“You can’t go in there!” the other female who was in the control room cries in alarm.

“Why not! Hunk said—”

“That was before. The leakage in that area means half of the energy draining into the storage tanks right now is going to go straight through that bay; it’s even more charged now than when she went in. You’d be exposed to a fatal dose within ticks.”

Lance feels suddenly cold. “What?”

“You mean she’s getting even more of it now?” Sam questions. He looks so pale.

“We have to get her out of there!” Lance insists. He surges forward, trying to break free from the Arellans’ grasp, but as willowy as they are, they’re stronger than they look.

“Lance,” Pidge gasps. “Dad...i-it’s okay. I’m...coming back.” She comes into view a moment later, turning back onto the main walkway back to the airlock, a small figure at the end of the straight shot.

Elwan motions to the airlock, and its’ two chambers and three sets of doors. “The entrance is designed to scrub the energy in a two-step process. We cannot go in for her, but she will able to come out.”

“Okay, I get it!” Lance yanks at the hold on his arms once more, and this time they let him go. He over balances, tipping into the wall by the airlock door.

Fingers fumble at his wrist computer, opening a private channel and closing off his other radio frequencies for the moment.

“Allura…” He doesn’t have the energy to care that it comes out in a sob.

“I’ve already turned around,” she says. “I’ll be there as quickly as I can. A few doboshes.”

“Hurry…please...”

A pause. He can hear the tears in her voice when she answers. “I don’t know if there is anything I can do, Lance. The Arellans have been in my mind. They know what my alchemy can accomplish; if they believed it could fix the kind of damage that will have been done—”

“But you’ll try?”

“Of course…”

Lance mumbles a thank you and shuts his comms off completely. His helmet and the wall he’s leaning into give him, for a moment, the illusion of privacy within the seal of his suit. A moment needed as sobs wrack his shoulders.

They’re all going to see that, at least.

He doesn’t care.

Hands rest on his shoulders after a moment, not trying to pull him away from the wall but just there. When he glances back, it’s Hunk, and he knew it would be. He keys his comms back on.

“...sorry…”

Hunk just shakes his head. Telling him not to be sorry. His face is wet, too. Lance reaches out, lets his friend cling to him while they wait.

Because waiting is all they can do. With his comms back on Pidge’s harsh breaths cut into the bubble of his helmet, and he isn’t sure why he hasn’t taken it off yet. There’s no point anymore. But maybe he doesn’t want Pidge to be the only one trapped in the strange quiet of her armor.

It’s something Lance has never quite gotten used to. Being alone and not alone all at once. His own breaths echoing in his ears. After so long he can ignore it, but sometimes the strangeness hits him all over again.

“Geez, you guys are just...staring at me,” Pidge says. She pauses, leaning into a wall near her for support. “It’s like an Olympic stretch or...or something. Make it...weird, why don’t you?”

Lance opens his mouth to say something. Anything. To retort because surely that’s what she’s looking for. Something else to break the tension. But his breath sticks, and no one else manages to answer, either. Not before Pidge cuts back into the channel with a groan as he knees buckle.

“Pidge!” Hunk cries.

Sam presses himself into the airlock door. “Katie? Katie!”

She crumples against the wall for a moment, but manages to push herself back to her feet and shuffles forward. “I’m coming...” she gasps. “—t’s just my head.”

“How long does the decontamination process take?” Sam asks anxiously.

“Approximately fifteen to twenty doboshes,” one of the male Arellans answers. “Five in the first chamber to clear the majority of the harmful levels energy, and ten or more in the second to more thoroughly cleanse bodies and the air of any remaining.”

“Why does it have to take so long?” Lance questions. “I thought it was only a long that was dangerous. Before it got worse you even said I could go in there for a couple of minutes. When she gets to the door can’t you just...skip the second part?”

How much time will they have? They need to get her out. Allura has to get to her. They have to...something. Something…

Elwan is already shaking her head. “The system is not designed for that, and even if it was, it wouldn’t be advisable. Even the energy left by the second scrub could damage the sensitive control equipment here in the outer chambers; we cannot risk it. I am sorry…”

Something that sounds like something swallowing over the comms, then Keith’s voice. “Elwan...what about my wolf? Do you know enough about species like his to know if he could safely teleport in and get Pidge out of there more quickly?”

“Keith, do NOT send Kosmo in here!” Pidge growls. It leads to something like a coughing fit, but she isn’t far from the airlock now. Sam and Hunk continue to talk to her, urging her on the last several meters to the door.

Lance turns to Elwan. “Wh-what about when she’s in the second chamber? So it isn’t safe for the computers and stuff; what about us?”

She hesitates, but after exchanging glances with a couple of the others, she sighs. “It would be safe enough if your suit remained sealed for the majority of the time. It might still lead to some side effects, but nothing that could not be treated.”

“Good. Fine. Let me do it.”

Sam glances back at that, catching Lance’s eyes. He opens his mouth as if he’s going to protest--as if he’s going to say not to take the risk--but something in Lance’s face must make him change his mind. He just nods.

“You will need to enter the chamber on this side before she enters the chamber on the other, to reduce the risk of cross contamination to the control system,” Elwan tells him.

He expected pushback from the others too, but he doesn’t get it. Any of it. The Arellans open the first airlock doors, and no one stops him from bolting through them to the doors in the middle. From being that much closer to Pidge when she reaches the doors on the other side. Even she says nothing, at first, as she waits for the doors behind him to close so she can open the ones on her side.

Her last few steps into the airlock chamber are heavy, and as the doors hiss closed again Pidge stumbles across the short space of the first chamber and into the glass between them. Lance follows her down to her knees, kneeling on the other side of the door that separates them.

“Pidge…”

He can really see her face now, through the visor of her helmet. It’s just as damp as his is. But she’s looking over his shoulder rather than at him. She smiles a little, nods, and when Lance glances back over his shoulder he realizes the others are moving away from the airlock, out of sight. Giving them a modicum of privacy. Sam is the last one to slip from view, catching his eyes before he’s gone and…

Lance doesn’t want to think about what he sees in them.

A soft beeping in his ears tells him Pidge has opened a private channel between their helmets.

“Hey, Lance…”

He looks back to her, and she’s still trying to smile and even though they’re both crying it’s the most beautiful thing he’s seen in a long time. His breath catches in his throat.

“Pidge, I...I missed you…”

She chokes on a quiet laugh. “Yeah...I missed me too.” Lance manages to laugh with her at that, if only for a moment.

“Allura’s coming, she...”

Pidge lets out a breath, the sharp sound cutting him off as she as she slips off her knees and leans heavily into the door for support.

“Pidge?”

“Can we not?” she asks shakily. “You know Allura can’t fix this.”

“We DON’T know that…!” She gives him a look, and he stops.

He knows. They both do. They also know Allura will try anyway.

“This isn’t...isn’t right, it…”

“Hey,” she says.

It’s getting harder to see, but he can make it out when Pidge moves to mirror his hand against the glass, pressing hers to it on the opposite side.

“I don’t regret it,” she whispers. “It brought me back to you.”

“For a...a varga or two, maybe?” Lance chokes out. He doesn’t mean to sound so angry, but he is. At everything. It isn’t fair.

“You’re the one who asked me out this morning; what, now you don’t even want to be my boyfriend for an hour?” she teases.

“That’s not funny!”

“...I’m sorry. Got a...few weeks’ worth of backlogged bad jokes here.”

He laughs once. “I like your jokes.”

“Nice to know someone does, I guess.” She tries to smile at him again, but she doubles over instead, her helmet scraping against the door as she groans.

Her hands go to her head, and Lance’s fists clench against the glass. Pidge is in pain, and there is nothing he can do. He can’t help her; he can’t even touch her yet. His chest aches at the blatant reminder that the damage to her mind is killing her as they speak.

She rests, gasping, as the wave of pain seems to pass, and Lance gives her a moment before he says anything.

“Pidge...why?” he sobs quietly. “Why did you go in there?”

“Someone...had to.”

“Why you?”

“It...it seemed logical at the time. I was observing the...others. Elwan...I could tell she was going to. But these people need their leader.”

Lance swallows hard. “We need YOU!”

She looks away. “I wasn’t really myself. I guess I knew that…”

“It didn’t matter! Not to me. I mean...it did, but…” He trails off as she studies him. “What?”

“Would you really have done it?” she asks softly.

“Done what?”

“Stayed with me...if I’d stayed the way I was. If I’d let you.”

Lance blinks. “I...of course. I mean I know it probably wouldn’t have been easy. You weren’t wrong I guess...I’m me. I just...but I wanted to. I’d have figured out how to make it work. WE would have. I believe that.”

Pidge closes her eyes for a moment. Or he thinks it’s going to be a moment, but they don’t open again. She starts to cry, and he feels utterly useless trapped on the other side of the glass.

“Pidge? Pidge...Pidge...K...Katie…?”

He’s never used her name before. He stumbles on it, part of his mind running rampant wondering what might have been. What the future might have looked like. Waking up next to her. Holding her. Whispering that name in her ear.

No. No no no, there has to be a chance. Still. Somehow…

At least it gets her attention, puts a halt to the tears for a moment. “That’s so weird,” she laughs.

Above them something beeps, and a light Lance didn’t notice before turns green.

“I think it’s gonna open,” Pidge says.

She groans again as she tries to push herself to her feet. It seems to take a good deal of effort, even with the door for support. And what does that mean about how much weaker she’s gotten just in the last five doboshes?

Lance comes up with her, ready to catch her. When the doors hiss open he thinks he’s ready, feet planted and arms open, but he isn’t ready for the force of what’s left of the energy in the chamber. He knows it can’t be that much compared with what it was like in the bay, but it hits him like a blow to the head.

He snaps back as Pidge slumps into his arms, bringing them both down against the wall. It takes a moment to realize the gasping grunt he heard was him. They land in a heap on the floor and his head is spinning, the impact of his helmet with the wall still sending ringing through his ears.

“Lance? Lance! Are you okay?” Pidge is clinging to his shoulders, pressing her helmet into his and when he forces his eyes open again she’s right there….

Their visors still separate them, but something in his throat catches when he sees her face so close. Even worried, it’s...he missed those expressions so much. The way her honey eyes reflect them. The way what she feels is so deeply a part of her.

“Y-Yeah,” he breathes.

“The energy?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t know it’d feel like that.” The initial force is gone, and it’s manifested as a constant ache in his head now, and if there was even more of it in the bay, what must that have been like? “Oh, Pidge...” He clings to her, pulling her in against his chest. “How…?”

She relaxes against him, wrapping her arms around him. “It hurt,” she admits. “A lot.”

They heard her crying out, they knew, but somehow feeling even this little bit of it and just hearing her say that is worse. Lance tries to answer, but his throat clogs.

She tilts her head into his, their helmets clacking, and she lets out a frustrated breath. “Stupid suits…”

For a little while, it’s almost quiet. Nothing but Pidge’s pained breaths and Lance’s hitching ones filling the radio space between their helmets.

“So it looks like you and my dad are pretty good friends now.”

Lance shrugs. “I guess we are...it just kinda happened. It started even before we left Earth, I guess.”

“He figured you out, didn’t he?”

Lance sputters. “Wh-what…?” But he lets it go quickly, trying to laugh. “Yeah. He did.”

Pidge shifts against him, settling with her head on his shoulder so she can look up at him. “Lance…”

He knows what she’s going to ask. He doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want want to talk about it, but he looks down at her anyway. “...yeah?”

“Especially until the Atlas gets back to Earth...you’ll be there for him, right?” she asks. Her voice is tight. “I-I know Shiro is his friend too, and I’m sure he will, but...D-dad’ll need...people. Don’t let him shut himself off, okay? I...I think I got that from him. He still might try to do it.”

Lance holds onto her more tightly, and for a moment it’s hard to see again, but he nods.

“Thank you…” She curls farther into his shoulder, as if trying to meld into him, but with their armor in the way it isn’t very comfortable. But it’s all they have right now.

That, and talking about things that don’t really matter. What strategy they SHOULD have used the last time they played Killbot. Which of Lance’s siblings have taken a liking to Kaltenecker and which ones haven’t.

“The kids love her; they promised to help Luis take care of her while we were gone. I wonder what the farm’ll look like when we get back. They’ll probably have more of it fixed up.”

He wanted to take Pidge there. He almost says it, but it hurts too much. It hurts so much it comes out in a strange sound. A whine as if he’s in physical pain. Which, he is, his head still hurts, but that isn’t the reason for the sound.

Their forced nonchalance evaporates, just like that. “Lance…”

“I can’t do this,” he gasps. “We just got you back.”

He wouldn’t say it out there. Not with the others listening, with her father listening. He feels bad enough saying it just to her, but at least it’s only her.

Pidge has never judged him. Not really. Teased, but never judged. Pidge is the one who’s always taken the time to explain things when he asks. She takes him seriously. Not that the others don’t, now...that’s since changed. But…

“Like I wanna die?” she whimpers. “Now? How is that fair? I may not regret that I saved a bunch of people, but how is dying for it fair?”

And he knows what she’s doing, too. Just taking the opportunity. If they do this at each other they don’t have to do it in front of anyone else. Maybe. Maybe it’ll help them be stronger for the others.

“It’s not,” Lance cries. “It’s not fair.”

It was different when it was all of them. When they pushed that mech out of the atmosphere to save Earth and they thought they were all going to die.

This is...it’s different.

A voice comes over the speakers in the chambers. One of the Arellan technicians, telling them the energy levels in the chamber are finally low enough for them to remove their helmets, but it will be a few doboshes more before they can be released from the airlock.

Pidge tears her helmet off immediately, fumbling with the releases and sending it clattering to the floor like it personally offended her. She gulps air—as well as it seems she can, anyway—as she tugs weakly at her chestplate.

“Get it...off, get it—!”

“Easy, easy…! Okay, hold on.” Lance pauses with his own helmet to help her get the top half of her armor and the arm guards off. She doesn’t stop pulling at them until they’re gone, scattered across the floor, like she couldn’t get enough air with them still on. There’s probably something to that, but the rest...he doesn’t blame her.

He’s more confused when she’s pulling at his, next, helping him push his helmet off and then her fingers scrabbling at the neck of his armor.

“Okay, okay…”

Maybe it’s because his head hurts that it takes a long moment to understand, but when she wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his unarmored chest while she waits for him to finish prying off his arm guards, it clicks. And he can’t get them off fast enough. Can’t get back to holding her fast enough.

It’s easier now. She’s closer. He can’t feel her warmth through his undersuit and he knows that’s what she wanted. He presses her closer and buries his face in her hair, and it’s still not enough, but at least it’s more.

“I love you,” he says. Because she needs to hear it again now that she can feel what it means.

Pidge pulls back against his shoulder so she can look up at him. Her hands slide up to his face, thumbs tracing over his cheeks as if trying to memorize him. Or trying to make the moment last as she looks into his eyes.

“I love you, too,” she says. She gives him one of those smiles. The ones that would have made him smile back without thinking any other day. “If we were dating like normal people it’d probably be a little soon to say that, but seeing as we’re kind of on a tight schedule here…”

When one of her arms trembles and starts to slip he holds it up for her, helping her and pulling her back to him as she leans up to hook her arms around his neck. Her fingers push into his hair as she kisses him.

It’s not as pressed as the first time, but the time is still borrowed. It’s still not the way it should be. Not really.

But Lance will take any moment he can get. Every tick. “Can we just...stay here?” He isn’t sure he’s said it out loud until Pidge smiles against his lips, pressing her forehead into his.

“Sorry,” she breathes. “Haven’t invented a way to freeze time yet.”

He laughs weakly. “You would have.”

“How much longer?” she asks.

How long do they have before the doors open. Before he can’t keep her to himself any longer.

“Maybe five doboshes…”

Her arms have slipped down against his chest, but she tugs at the neck of his undersuit, and he kisses her again. They make the most of the moments they have. Until Pidge doubles over into his chest, clutching at her head again.

“Pidge…!”

This time the pain is enough to set her crying. When the doors open Lance is rocking with her, just holding her and crying with her because he can’t do anything else.

“Help!” he pleads.

Elwan is the first into the chamber, Sam hovering closely over her shoulder.

“I can do something for the pain, at least,” she explains as she kneels beside them. She presses a hand to the back of Pidge’s head, because her face is buried in Lance’s chest. In a moment or two her cries have subsided, and she slumps in his arms.

“Pidge?” he asks.

She meets his eyes first when her flicker open again. Enough to let him know she’s all right before she sees Elwan. “Thanks…”

“I am only sorry it is all I can do, after what you have done for us.”

The Arellan moves, then, so Sam can get to his daughter.

“Dad…” She reaches out, and he picks her up to carry her from the chamber.

Something in Sam’s face is thanking him as he takes Pidge, and one of her hands clings to his until Sam stands up, but Lance still feels cold when she’s gone. A chill that’s only negated, a little, when Hunk sweeps in behind Sam to help him up.

“We should remove everything from the chamber so it can be closed,” Elwan is saying. Lance thinks she’s talking to them and he starts to move, automatically, to help pick up the pieces of his and Pidge’s armor. But she’s saying it to the other Arellans, who gently urge them out and take care of gathering the pieces themselves.

  
Out in the main control area, Sam is settling against a wall with Pidge, on a blanket or two someone seems to have found.

Hunk must see the questioning look on Lance’s face, because he fills in quietly. “Their hospital is halfway across the city, a-and they can’t really do anything anyway. We...they said we probably don’t have much….t-time, so…”

“Wh-where’s Allura…?”

“They’ll be here in a tick or two, but, Lance—”

“I know, okay?” he says tightly.

Hunk looks away, he looks sorry he said anything, and that isn’t what Lance meant to do. He puts an arm around him in apology, and it seems to be accepted as Hunk clings to him again.

The door to the corridor opens soon enough. Allura rushes in with a purpose, pausing only to find Sam and Pidge with her eyes. Shiro and Coran come to where Hunk and Lance have stopped, hovering just far enough away to give father and daughter some privacy. Keith follows them more slowly, looking like he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, and Lance can’t really blame him for that feeling.

Allura leans in over Pidge, her body language all urgency, the blue glow of her alchemy flaring as Pidge leans her head into the princess’s hands.

For just...an instant. For a fraction of a tick. Lance can’t stop himself from seeing, one more time, what the future could be. A flash of more. An image of a family. Of raising children that look like Pidge and have Sam as a grandfather.

But Allura stops. Her head bows, and Lance can’t hear what she says, but he can see her shoulders shaking.

And the images blow away like so much smoke.

He doesn’t realize how much part of him still hoped, until it’s gone. He doesn’t notice his knees are buckling until there’s another arm around him, holding him up.

“Easy there, my boy, I’ve got you.”

“Coran…”

Shiro has Hunk, and none of them look as if they really want to be here right now. Where this is real. Where this is happening and there isn’t anything they can do about it.

Allura stays with Sam and Pidge for another doboshes or two, speaking to both of them. Leaning closer to squeeze the smaller girl in an embrace and kissing her forehead before she leaves them. When she stands up, she looks so lost.

Lance whispers a quiet thanks to Coran and sends Hunk a quick look of apology for going as he extracts himself from the group. He still feels shaky as he goes, but someone needs to. Allura is shuffling back to them when he meets her, catches her arms and pulls her in. She buries her face in his neck, and he can feel the dampness above the collar of his undersuit.

“It’s not your fault,” he whispers.

Everything becomes fuzzy after that. His head still hurts, and he holds onto Allura, and the others go one by one to say their goodbyes, and he can’t…

Part of him can’t process that that’s really what they’re doing. That’s what happening now. How is that what’s happening? Hunk comes back and clings to his shoulders and cries into his arm even while Allura is still pressed into his chest. Keith is leaning heavily into a wall like it’s the only thing holding him up, while Shiro goes to kneel beside Sam and Pidge, and none of it seems real.

Nothing seems to solidify until Veronica’s voice comes through on their comms.

“Guys? Captain? Can anyone hear me? The Green Lion is awake and going crazy up here! I’m afraid she’s going to break out of the hangar.”

Shiro’s eyebrows go up, and Lance can hear him when he looks back at Pidge. They’ve all drifted closer.

“Pidge…?”

She’s so weak now. More pale than before. Barely able to move, and breathing still seems hard for her, but at least she hasn’t been in pain since whatever Elwan did. She licks dry lips, and swallows. “I...I tried to...say goodbye. She...wasn’t happy.”

Shiro leans closer to her with a sudden urgency. “Is she trying to say anything to you?”

“I think...but...it’s hard to...hear her. Mm...tired.”

He reaches for her hands. “I know, Pidge. It’s hard right now, but you have to listen. Try. Try to focus; what’s she trying to say?”

“She wants...doesn’t want me to...go. Like...it feels like...she wants help.”

Shiro is nodding, but Keith is pushing off from the wall, and he’s shaking his head. “Shiro...no. No, that’s—”

“It’s the only chance we’ve got,” Shiro says. “And it should be up to her.”

“What…?” Pidge asks weakly. Sam’s eyes are wide, but he hasn’t said anything yet.

Lance understands before Shiro says it, and it comes with a strange mix of hope and fear. Allura is already releasing him enough to turn around. To look at them.

“Pidge,” Shiro says. His voice is gentle, but the urgency still threads it. “What if the Green Lion wants to do the same thing for you that Black did for me? What if she can save you?”

Pidge swallows. “But it’d...I’d be stuck in there...like you were…”

He winces. “I know. I know it’s—I-I know it sounds scary, and I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it wasn’t at first. But if Green can do it, you won’t be gone. We’ll have a chance to figure out how to get you back.” He looks to Allura, quickly. “You could do it again, couldn’t you? What you did for me?”

Allura nods slightly. “If there were a place for her consciousness to go. Another way to heal her body, or a way to find another one…”

“This body exists. ‘I’ exist,” Shiro says. “We know there’s a way; we just have to find it.”

Is it really possible? The fact that Shiro is still here and still himself is proof that however Haggar was able to make clones, that process itself doesn’t create anything inherently evil, or bad, or wrong. It was Haggar’s control that was the problem.

Sam hugs his daughter close when she looks to him, as if he’ll have the answer. “Katie, I can’t make this decision for you. If there’s a way to not lose you…” He sobs and shakes his head. “But I only want it if you do.”

For some reason, Pidge finds him. She meets his eyes and Lance holds a breath. He wants to tell her he’ll understand whatever she decides, but he can’t get the words out. He hopes she can see it in his eyes.

When she smiles, he thinks she can.

“Worth a...try, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I'm sorry again? I swear this is still going to end well? But...I mean you can't rip off Wrath of Khan without ripping off Search For Spock...so...


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay in updating this one! After season 8 came out I had to spend a little time deciding how much of it I was going to ignore for this particular story...pretty much going with 'all of it' I think lol. Anyway, thank you so much for reading! I can't wait to hear what you think! <3

They meet the green lion back in the park, where the other lions have been left waiting. Shiro holds Pidge against his chest, the only one of them other than Allura really physically equipped to carry her that far without throwing her over a shoulder.

Lance hovers at his side the whole way there, close to Pidge, almost mirroring Sam on the other. His feet keep him close without thought, but not without reason. Both of them taking the chance to be as near to her as they can for as long as they can, maybe. Because…

But Lance’s mind still stutters over the reality. In the airlock, he could almost face it with Pidge even if he didn’t want to. Out here it’s...too much, maybe.

But he can hover at Shiro’s shoulder and keep light fingers on Pidge’s knee, or against her leg, as they rush through the corridors and across the grounds. And at least she knows he’s there even if she can’t quite always keep her eyes open anymore.

Something about the green lion is still clearly agitated as she touches down in the purple grass, a low rumble coming from her throat, but her movements are gentle as she leans down to Shiro and her paladin in his arms.

Green noses close enough for Pidge to reach out to her. When she can’t lift her arm long enough to touch Green’s snout on her own, Lance and Sam both move to help her. To hold her arm up for her. Lance thinks about pulling away, but Pidge’s father doesn’t seem to mind that they’re doing it together.

Neither does he.

“Hey,” Pidge whispers to her lion. Another low sound from Green, and Pidge smiles. “Yeah, I missed you too.”

When Green pulls back enough to open her mouth and give them access to the ramp...as hurried as they’ve been, they all seem to hesitate.

“I was in the cockpit,” Shiro says quietly. “I don’t know if that matters, but…”

“We should go in,” Pidge answers, her voice weak but confident, definitive but not without fear.

Lance takes an uneven breath, his stomach tied in knots and his legs feeling weak as he follows Shiro and Sam into the lion. In the cockpit, the seat has slid back farther from the console than usual, it’s back reclined much farther than he knew they could, and it’s clear Green is ready for them.

Still, Shiro seems to have a moment of uncertainty as he stands over the pilot’s chair clinging to Pidge. Lance wonders if he’s having second thoughts about this...about sending Pidge into the same situation he was trapped in for months.

“It’s...it’s okay, Shiro…” she says. “I’ll be okay…”

“I-I know…”

As Shiro lowers her into the reclined chair, Lance goes to his knees at one side of it. It should have been easily but one knee hits too hard when his trembling body fails him and his only cover is to grip the edge of the seat on the way down. Everything's fine here he definitely meant to do that. A delicate hand on his shoulder tells him Allura noticed, but she doesn’t say anything.

He takes Pidge’s hand now that it’s within reach again, the fingers of his other hand combing through her hair as she settles into the cushions, and he doesn’t care that the others can all see them now. The privacy they were given when everyone pulled away from the airlock entrance is gone but he can’t do anything but be as close to her as he can now. He isn’t physically capable of anything else.

If he weren’t right here with her now he doesn’t know if he would be able to breathe. As it is, his chest feels like a weight has settled over it.

How much longer until even this is gone? How long will it take to get her back?

Lance won’t let himself think about the possibility that they won’t.

Sam is across from him holding his daughter’s other hand and kissing her forehead. The others are circled around the chair almost as if they could keep her alive by sheer force of will. As if, if they just hold on, or if they keep talking, she won’t go.

Or maybe that’s all in his head, but Shiro has gone the way of talking, leaning close from in front of her, trying to impart any knowledge he has about how to cope in the void.

“If I could do it, I know you can...you are so strong, Katie...I only wish…”

That there was another way? Anything? The words hang unspoken in the air because they don’t need to be said. Her fingers twitch in Lance’s hand as if to say she wishes that, too.

Lance doesn’t hear much of the rest. The techniques Shiro used. What it was like. He tries to listen, but any if it he may need to know later...when they try to make contact with Pidge...assuming this even works…

He can ask Shiro and Keith later if he needs to. Pidge might not be able to. She’s the one who needs to hear it now, and...and right now Lance is too focused on her. On the clammy warmth of her hand, the calluses on her fingers from whatever she does in that lab, the soft hair between his own fingers...memorizing every inch of her face and the way the corner of her mouth quirks up when something amuses her.

“Just...don’t bring me back as...a robot or anything...okay? I love them...but...don’t wanna be one.” She’s trying to smile now, but his chest still twinges painfully at that, and from the looks on the others’ faces he isn’t alone.

The last few weeks were painful enough.

“Too soon?” Pidge whispers.

Somehow Keith is the one who’s actually able to muster a short bark of a laugh at that for her, and she gives him a thankful glance even as she apologizes.

“Sorry…”

Sam shakes his head. “Maybe I should apologize; I think you got your sense of humor from me.”

“Hey,” she protests. “‘t’s...a good one.”

Her father laughs weakly at that.

Lance presses a kiss to her temple. “I’ve always liked it.” He wishes his voice didn’t sound so strained. He doesn’t want that to be what she hears.

It seems to take so much effort just for Pidge to roll her head back to him to catch his eyes with her exhausted ones. Her breaths are so shallow now…

“Only...pretended I...hated yours,” she manages.

And why is that what brings more tears? It only lasts a moment but when he composes himself again Pidge has closed her eyes and Lance swallows as his heart leaps into his throat. “Pidge…?”

“Katie?” Sam is saying.

“...still here,” she murmurs.

For now. For...a few more doboshes, maybe? Lance squeezes her hand more tightly to keep his own fingers from trembling so badly. When her eyes flicker open again he leans closer to press his forehead to hers.

“I love you...we’ll get you back...we will…” Her heads shifts, a tiny movement but enough that he knows what she wants, knows to kiss her.

It’s the last thing Lance really remembers before the end. A quiet blur of the others saying similar things. Comforting her. Mostly Sam. He thinks he says more himself, but later he doesn’t remember what. It doesn’t matter. Soon enough Pidge can’t really hear them anymore anyway. She’s too far gone. Her eyes close and don’t open again and all Lance can do is cling to her hand, her wrist, to feel her thready heartbeat, and press his forehead into her shoulder to feel the minuscule movements of the last of her breaths.

He feels it the moment they stop.

Only then does Lance lift his head again, in the silence. The nothing. Nothing happening.

No. No no no, it has to happen. It has to work. She can’t just be…

The panicked glance he exchanges with Sam is stopped when they notice the green glow growing from the still figure in the pilot’s seat. In a moment...a sparkling mass of energy pulling itself from the green paladin’s body, and Lance’s fingers tingle where he still touches her, but he can’t let go.

They can all only watch as the energy...Pidge..her quintessence...her self...spreads away from them to seep into the consoles and the cockpit walls in an achingly strange reversal of the day Allura pulled Shiro from the black lion.

And then the cockpit goes dark.

“Hold on!” Shiro says. His voice cuts into the suddenly broken silence, the groaning of metal, the green lion collapsing.

Lance grips the edge of the seat again as hands grab at his shoulders, his stomach dropping at the sensation of falling. Hunk and Allura are thrown into him as the lion’s upper body hits the ground and shakes the cockpit, and it’s so strange that no one else cries out.

They just hold onto each other in the agonizing silence that is soon broken again by quiet sounds of pain that have nothing to do with the jostling they took.

Hunk sobs. Allura and Coran are sniffing themselves. Shiro slumps back against the console, his metal hand curling into a fist that thumps sharply against the floor once, purposefully, in an outburst laced with a curse under his breath, and Keith makes a strange strangled sound as he kneels slowly beside Shiro.

Lance is pretty sure Coran is the one over his shoulder now. With him and Hunk. Trying to help or...something.

Should he be crying now? He feels like he should be, but the tears, strangely, have stopped. Everything is...fuzzy. Numb.

He senses Allura moving, going to Sam, who seems to be trapped in the same sudden stupor.

“Sam…” she says gently. “Sam, I’m so sorry, I...the stasis pod that we still have from the castle, in the black lion’s cargo hold. We should move her there as quickly as possible…so we can bring her home...”

Lance blinks. Oh. It couldn’t have saved her, but it can preserve her. If...when they find out how Haggar cloned Shiro they’ll need genetic material and—

His eyes slip closed and his mind shorts out again. He isn’t sure how long it is before he’s stumbling out of Green with Hunk and Coran, back onto the purple grass. The light outside is waning and Shiro and Keith have gone with Sam and Allura to…

To bring Pidge’s body to the stasis pod.

Because a body is all it is now.

He knows Pidge isn’t gone. Not really. But how is it fair that all they wanted…? They came here to help her and now she’s dead.

The hand Lance held hers with is cradled against his chest as if he can still feel the warmth. As if he could forget the chilling sensation of her limp fingers slipping from his when they took her. None of it seems real. She should be here, not stuck in some crazy limbo. She got to be herself again but now…

The late afternoon glare of New Arella’s sky makes him wince, glancing up into the pink and orange sunset in the distance.

_A billion sunsets just happen every day_. But until they can get her back...somehow...Pidge won’t see any of them.

Lance takes a labored breath and tries to take a step, not sure where he’s trying to go—just...away, maybe—but he crashes to his knees instead. Nothing to catch himself on this time. He thinks maybe Hunk or Coran reach for him as he goes down on the grass, but they don’t catch him in time.

Pain shoots up his legs at the impact, but everything inside him hurts more as Lance screams wordlessly at nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear things'll get better and that 'angst with a happy ending' tag is still valid but this chapter just kind of really needed to end there I am so sorry oooof.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, I am so sorry this took so long, life and stuff haha. In any case! I hope you enjoy it!

_Seven Weeks Later_

“Hey.” A nudge against his shoulder reminds Lance his sister is still beside him as they file out of one of the Garrison’s smaller conference rooms. “You all right?”

He lets out a breath. “Not really.”

Keith was trying to tell them that maybe it was time to find another pilot for the green lion. It wasn’t the entire coalition leadership in there, just the paladins and those close to them, and close to the the Holt family. It made sense, as sensitive as the topic was. None of them were happy about it, Keith included, but he wasn’t wrong.

“Haggar is still out there somewhere,” Keith reminded them. “And we still don’t know if it was her or someone else who sent that robeast. Maybe when they’ve found the rest of it we’ll know more, but for now we need to be ready. What if another one shows up somewhere? We need Voltron.”

They all knew it would come to this. It’s time. But it still feels like someone squeezing a vice grip around his heart.

Veronica studies him for a moment. “You want to come with me? Go shoot some stuff or something?”

Lance smirks weakly. “Thanks; not right now.”

“Okay. Just let me know if…”

“Yeah. I will. Thanks.”

She nods, a hand at his back briefly before she moves off, seeming to get the message that he’d rather be alone right now. Even Hunk only stops for a moment to pull him into a hug before going off with his parents. He does hesitate, but Lance silently encourages him to go.

The last to come up to him before he makes it out of the building is Sam.

“Lance?” A hand rests on his arm. “I understand if you’d prefer to be with your own family right now, or alone, even, but we want you to know you’re welcome to eat with us tonight.” Sam glances back to Colleen, who’s speaking with Allura and Shiro. But when she sees them looking, she smiles for a moment. It’s a tired smile, but it’s sincere even without words.

“We miss you at the house. You know you’re still welcome there,” Sam continues.

Lance has tried to give the Holts their space since the Atlas returned to Earth, to work through what’s happened without him in the way, but he has to admit he’s missed them, too.

***

The green lion is still dark and silent, crumpled on the floor of the Atlas’s hanger. Like the black lion after Shiro disappeared.

Lance knows Pidge is here, but he can’t feel her. There hasn’t been a peep from her or Green, and he knows it took time for Shiro to make contact with them but…

“I didn’t know Shiro was there, either,” Keith’s tried to tell him. “We just...have to wait, I guess.” But it doesn’t help that he still sounds quilty when he says it. Lance, at least, can understand that feeling. Sometimes it still stings to remember he didn’t understand when Shiro tried to reach out to him.

Even with his hands pressed to the deck and his eyes closed, willing there to be something, Lance is still effectively alone in the dim cockpit.

“I miss you,” he whispers into the silence.

Waiting is hard.

He slumps back against the wall with a heavy sigh, pulling his knees up to his chest. More often than not this is how he ends up when he comes here. Stuffed into a back corner of the cockpit, hoping to be there when something finally happens. Sometimes he wakes up stiff and shivering on the floor, with part of his mind telling him spending so much of his free time here is stupid, but he keeps coming anyway.

At least he isn’t the only one.

The echo of footsteps on the ramp reaches his ears before anyone comes into view. He expects, maybe, to see Sam—they’ve crossed paths here many times; sometimes they’ve come together to begin with—but there have been more people here since they returned to Earth.

It’s Matt who comes into view, trudging tiredly and swiping at his face before he glances back to check that he isn’t alone.

Something in Lance’s chest tightens. He doesn’t remember a lot about Matthew Holt before he left Earth on the Kerberos mission—Lance knew more about Shiro back then, the Garrison’s golden boy, his hero—but since he met Matt out in space, he’s known the often goofy rebel genius to otherwise show nothing but strength. Being out there changed him, like it changed all of them, and they’re all human but seeing him like this doesn’t feel right when he isn’t as close to Matt as he is to his friends. Lance feels much more comfortable around Matt’s father.

“Hey,” Lance says quietly. It comes out almost apologetic.

Matt clears his throat noisily. “Um...hey. Still hanging out in here a lot, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

A shrug as Matt looks away. “Yeah...me too.”

Lance climbs to his feet, his back and knees protesting after how long he’s been down there on the floor. “I um...I’ll get out of your way…”

Matt looks back to him with another shrug, his expression softening. “You don’t have to. It’s fine, really. It’s just easier to be here than in the infirmary.”

Lance winces. “I know what you mean.”

A back room of the Atlas infirmary where the Altean stasis pod has been moved, he means. Lance has been there, but only once, and really only to prove to himself he wasn’t afraid of it.

Maybe, too, he just wanted to see her face. But it doesn’t feel like her face anymore. It’s only a body in the pod. Pidge isn’t there, and he hasn’t been back.

“Can...can she hear us?” Matt asks. He shakes his head suddenly. “I don’t know why I’m asking you; even Shiro isn’t sure…”

“I wish I knew,” Lance admits. “I talk to her sometimes, I guess so she’s not lonely if she can hear me, but I don’t know.”

Because nothing has moved since Green went offline, the pilot’s seat is still laid out nearly horizontal in the middle of the cockpit. Matt stares down at it for a while as if it could tell him something.

When the silence drags on, Lance turns to go anyway even though it’s more comfortable now.

“Dad told me how much you did out there. For Pidge, I mean. And him too, really.”

Lance stops, glancing back at Matt with raised eyebrows. “Oh. I uh...I mean, I just—”

The smile he receives is an understanding one. “You don’t have to figure out what to say to that or anything. I just wanted to thank you.”

“Oh…”

What’s wrong with him? He used to know how respond to compliments. Thanks. Whatever. But all of the ways he used to know how to respond don’t seem appropriate. They weren’t really appropriate ever, really.

“Are you coming to the house tonight?” Matt asks.

“Maybe. I think so.”

“Good. Dad was saying he hoped you would.”

Lance finds a chuckle at that. “I really don’t know why he seems to like me so much.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short. I’m pretty sure my sister would ask me to smack you for that.”

They both laugh then. It hurts, but maybe not as much as it would have a few weeks ago. Maybe things are getting easier.

As he turns again to go Lance notices Matt shifting closer to the console to brush a hand over it, wistful, but he doesn’t think anything of it. He’s done the same many times when he’s been here, hoping for some sort of clue that Pidge is all right in there.

At least, he doesn’t think anything of it until the cockpit bursts to life.

Lance spins back around at the sudden lights and the sounds of the power coming on and the confused cry behind him. Matt, staggering back from the console.

“What’s going on!”

His heart is pounding faster in his chest, but the adrenaline is suddenly welcome. Lance can feel the grin creeping onto his face, and he has no desire to smother it.

If Green was going to have to pick someone…

“I-I think the green lion knows it’s time. I think she wants you.”

Matt’s eyebrows have disappeared under his shaggy hairline. “I’m not a pilot!”

“Neither was Pidge.” Lance isn’t sure why he’s laughing again, but there it is.

Both of them stumble as the lion comes to life, climbing to its feet and shaking the cockpit. The reclined seat in the middle of the floor rights itself, sliding forward and knocking Matt off his feet, scooping him up to push him back to the console. He holds his hands away from it as if he’s afraid to touch it now, trying to clamor out of the seat.

“Pidge!” Matt calls. “Pidge, come on! I’m not—!” He cuts off, clinging to the back of chair with one arm. His other hand hovers toward his head. “Whoa...what is that?”

“In your head?” Lance asks. He wonders closer, reaching for one of Matt’s shoulders.

“Yeah…” His eyes are wide, but it seems to be more wonder now than shock. “Oh.”

Lance swallows, almost jealous. After all, Matt is connecting with the lion that holds Pidge’s consciousness. What wouldn’t he give for that...

But if anyone deserves it, her brother does.

Matt is blinking rapidly now, blinking back dampness when Lance focuses on him again. “Pidge…?”

Lance’s fingers tighten around Matt’s arm, a surge of hope gripping him. “Is she there?”

His stomach is plummeting all at once at as he realizes he might not be able to get to her himself at all. Not for a while, maybe. And not easily.

But even as he’s bracing himself for the possibility, the cockpit fades away around them.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

Matt doesn’t seem as shocked by the shift into the dark, glittering void as Lance thought he would be. Maybe his new connection to the green lion’s consciousness is easing the way for him. What has both of them frozen in place is the short figure a few feet away, her smile the brightest thing they can see.

“Pidge,” Matt breathes.

“Sorry...Green and I had to figure out how to do this. And the whole...sharing a consciousness thing, and all.”

Lance is still speechless, his throat suddenly clogged, but he doesn’t mind Matt rushing forward first anyway. He wasn’t there when it all happened. He didn’t even get to say goodbye; he certainly deserves to be the first to greet his sister now.

He lets his eyes go unfocused, trying not to eavesdrop as brother and sister hold onto each other, and he isn’t sure which of them is crying more. Can Pidge even cry in here?

But she’s HERE. She’s okay.

“How are Mom and Dad?”

“They’re making it. They miss you.”

“I don’t know if there’s a way for me to talk to them. I know I’ll be able to talk to you and the other paladins, but…”

“Okay, ABOUT that—”

A laugh, more quiet words Lance doesn’t make out, and he doesn’t realize he’s closed his eyes or that they’ve gone quiet until a tingling sensation shivers up his arm. The touch of a hand clasping his, but without the warmth of a body.

His eyes snap open, and Pidge is there, smiling up at him. She looks almost the same as the last time he saw her—black jumpsuit, but without the armor except for her leg guards and boots, her glasses missing. But she looks better now. Not sick, or pale, or dying.

Well...maybe a little pale, what with the being somewhat transparent thing.

“Hey,” she whispers.

Lance chokes back a sob as he draws her into his chest. The sensation isn’t as far away from the way it would feel in reality as he was afraid it would be. He misses her warmth, but he can still feel the pressure of her arms tightening around his waist, and her astral body against him. He can’t feel her breath against his neck, but the tingling is nice in its’ own way.

“I told you it'd be okay,” she tells him.

“I know,” he mumbles. “I know, I just…”

There’s still a long way to go from here.

“So you really think this is a good idea?” Matt asks anxiously, when they’ve all gathered.

The astral waters lap around them, and it’s still strange to Lance that they aren’t actually wet. That his feet seem to hover above them on something more solid that he can’t see.

“You taking over piloting Green?” Pidge asks.

“What else would I be talking about right now!”

She crosses her arms as she shrugs, smirking a little. “I don’t tell my lion what to do, you know. She’s the one who’s going to have to live with you.”

Matt’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “You can’t tell me you had nothing to do with this.”

Something glints in her eyes, and Lance grins as he jumps in. “Hey, lions choose their own pilots.”

“She still had something to do with this; I KNOW she did.”

“Maybe Green just like Holts,” Pidge answers. “Are you actually complaining?”

“I mean, NO…”

It makes perfect sense. There’s no one as much like Pidge as her brother. But like Pidge, he also seems to be overthinking. But just as he’s done everything he’s done for the rebels well, Lance knows he’ll be fine. It may take more convincing as he aclimates and learns to get along with Green, but it’s going to work.

As Pidge pulls Matt aside to reassure him, Lance can already see the anxiety fading away. The set in his shoulders as he starts to ask more serious questions.

“We’ll be here for you, too,” Lance reminds him. “All of us. You’re a paladin now.”

Pidge asks her brother if he minds giving them a moment, after that. “But I’ll be here if you need me.” She smirks again. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

Matt blinks, glancing from her to Lance. “Oh. Uh, yeah, yeah.” He hugs her again before backing away.

“You’re gonna do great, Matt.”

He’s smiling as he fades away, back to reality, leaving Lance and Pidge alone.

Pidge wastes no time turning back to Lance, reaching up for his face and dragging him down close enough to kiss him. A surprised sound escapes from the back of his throat, but he responds in earnest.

He’s laughing when she goes back down on her heels, releasing his face but keeping her arms around his neck. “I missed you, too.”

“It is SO boring in here…when I can makes any sense of time at all, anyway.”

Lance winces, pulling her close again and hanging on. “We’ll get you out of here. Coran and Allura are already working on it, and your dad’s helping, and some of the best people at the Garrison…”

“Okay...” she says. It comes out quiet and tight, and he realizes she was playing down her fear so Matt wouldn’t be worried.

Lance presses a kiss into her hair, which tingles more than it tickles here. “I mean it. I don’t care how long it takes; I’m not giving up.”

Pidge nods against his chest, and Lance just stands there with her for a while, stroking her hair. He would have gladly stayed for much longer, but after a few minutes she pulls back with a sudden laugh.

“What?” Lance asks.

“I think Matt needs some help,” she chuckles.

“Oh no, is he trying to fly Green?”

“I don’t think she gave him much of a choice.”

Lance finds her hands to squeeze them, but Pidge doesn’t let him go until he kisses her again.

“I’ll be back,” he promises.

“You’d better,” she teases.

Pidge is smiling again as he goes, clearly feeling better, and Lance isn’t sure HOW it is he leaves, but reality reasserts itself with the jolting of the cockpit around him, Matt’s shouting, and voices over the comms.

“Shiro, I swear this was not my plan!”

“Matt, relax! You’re doing fine.”

“This is fine?!”

Lance latches onto the back of the pilot’s seat as the green lion makes a break for the edge of the atmosphere. Shiro and Sam are visible on the comm screen; apparently the Garrison knows what’s going on, now.

And Green seems to have taken full advantage of the fact that the Atlas’ hangar door was open.

“The lion isn’t going to let anything happen to you,” Shiro is assuring Matt.

He and Lance tries to give Matt a few pointers, but Lance still find himself clinging to the chair as a third face pushes into view on the comm screen.

“Is he doing better than the first time Lance tried to fly Blue?” Keith asks. “I think he’s at least doing better than that.”

“Can it, Mullet!”

Courtesy of his own lion’s connection with Green, Lance is 100% sure he can hear Pidge laughing from the void. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!


End file.
